When I left school, I left a network of peers via whom I could listen to the latest Rush releases without having to buy them. Having had them at the centre of my life for nearly two years — a long time for a teenager — curiosity wouldn't allow me to ignore Grace Under Pressure when it came out, so I had to get my own copy.
I half wanted to like it, to validate the earlier obsession, and half wanted to hate it, to validate the decision to move on. I ended up mostly indifferent. The Enemy Within seemed like a decent effort at recreating the fresh approach of Vital Signs, and I think there was another track I quite liked — but from this distance I can't tell what it was.
As I said of Power Windows, keeping up with Rush was like keeping tabs on old girlfriend. Later, you wonder why you bothered for so long.
Continuing the trends that had been at work for several years by this point, the band's hair was getting shorter (they look positively fresh-faced on the back cover) and Neil Peart's lyrics shifted their focus from fantasy and space opera to a science fiction of the nearer term. This only served to expose how prosaic his poetry could sometimes be:
I hear the sound of gunfire
At the prison gate
Are the liberators here —
Do I hope or do I fear?
For my father and my brother — it's too late
But I must help my mother
Stand up straight…
Similarly, how could they not see that the image on the inside sleeve would have made a vastly better album cover than the one they (?) chose?
MusicBrainz entry for this album
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