Comparing

I've been meaning to post something in here for a couple of days now, but I never seem to come around to actually doing it. Since my last post I've been listening a lot to Clockwork Angels. I posted on TNMS (The National Midday Sun - The Home for European Rush Fans) that CA is their best album since Hold Your Fire, and yesterday I decided I had to compare the two. When I first got into Rush, I wasn't too keen on their output in the 80s. I thought everything before Moving Pictures was great, but I couldn't see what was so great about Signals, Grace Under Pressure, Power Windows and Hold Your Fire. Since then I've discovered so much in those albums, that I love them too. And that's one of the reasons why I love Rush. There's just so much to explore and discover. But at the same time, this means that these albums are nowhere near safe from upcoming contenders like CA.

Anyway, back to my comparison. Before I posted that CA is their best album since HYF, I didn't compare it with the albums in between the two, since it was so clear to me that CA was better than those six albums (Presto, Roll the Bones, Counterparts, Test For Echo, Vapour Trails and Snakes & Arrows). And I stick by that opinion without comparing them. But HYF is such a strong album that I had to draw the line there. Then I started thinking, what if it's even better than HYF? So, yesterday I finally compared them. And I came to the conclusion that Hold Your Fire wins, for now. I prefer the sound on CA, and CA rocks harder, but so far the songs on HYF are still slightly stronger on the whole. I'm not too sure I'll prefer HYF in the long run though...

/H