Fly By Night - Rush

A new era begins! The Canadian Band's Sophomore release ushered in the Lyrical stylings of Neil Peart (Drums) who replaced original drummer John Rutsey (He left to work on amateur bodybuilding and also due to health concerns). It was written in 1975 - just a year after their debut album. With this change in personnel came a corresponding change in musical style - the first album having been essentially a Led Zeppelin style Blues-Rock effort. Neil's intelligent and broad-reading thoughtfulness moved the Lyrics on from the standards of Rock: Getting/Losing a Woman, Needing some/Having too much Alcohol, Motorbikes and occasionally Death. A major literary ...  Read the complete review

On album number two, original drummer John Rutsey was replaced by the intellectual and supremely talented Neil Peart. And so began many years of meaningful, mystic and sometimes bizarre lyrical excursions interwoven between layers of intricate instrumentation. I class Fly By Night as the first 'real' Rush album. The self-titled debut was a bit of poor Led Zeppelin rip-off with it's overloud, crunchy guitars and blues jamming (something which wasn't in line with the Rush sound). Although the 'rockisms' are still present on Fly By Night, the album is more melodic and explores a more acoustic side also. The classical guitar of Rivendell ...  Read the complete review