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Customer Reviews of Hemispheres

Only two good songs
Well, in general I'm not a fan of Rush's extended pieces, so the first half of this album remains a bit inaccessible for me. In my eyes, "Cygnus X-1, Book II" is an inconsistent and chaotic soundscape. And "Circumstances" leaves me cold, so there are only two songs left which I like. I think you can hear on "Hemispheres" that Rush were weighted down by their own ambitions. At the end of the '70s even prog-rock dinosaurs Yes turned to play shorter and more accessible songs, while Rush pursued their pretentious and worn-out sci-fi themes. This album is a must-have for fans only, the rest will be satisfied with having "The Trees" and "La Villa.." on Rush's compilations.

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Rush at their most experimental
This album is a crossroads of sorts. Not only is it their most experimental album, it also marks the end of this excessive period. The next album "Permanent Waves" ushered in a more FM radio friendly sound and brought more refinement to their overall sound.

A good example of this is the first half of the album, which is a continuation of their last album "A Farewell To Kings".

The first track, "Hemispheres" continues on the theme left by "Cygnus X-1" but only does a much better job at getting the point across.

The first few minutes of Hemispheres are it's best. The rest is merely a variation on the same musical theme and offers up nothing new for about 15 minutes. Again, the lyrics are steeped in mythology and tend to swamp the whole song.

However, what lacked in the first half was very adequately made up on the second half.

"Circumstances" and "The Trees" show the power this band has when given a four or five minute window to cram all their chops and lyric ideas (something that will become more evident on later albums)

"La Villa Strangiato", which the band has often called "an excercise in self-indulgence" is their first attempt at letting the music do all the talking instead of Peart. The result...one of the best rock instrumentals ever recorded.

For the last time to date, the band stretches out and packs in nearly 10 minutes of solos and jams into one unprecendented song that will make you air guitar and tap your fingers forever.

The second half of this album shows where Rush is going and becoming. It shows them refining their songwriting and playing in preparation for what's to come next on "Permanent Waves"

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Another winner from Rush
Rush's seventh album Hemispheres was released in October, 1978. The album is the third jewel in Rush's 1970s art rock crown. I first discovered this album on cassette in late August of 1990 and was my most played album in my first three months of freshman year of high school. This album is still great, even today. Hemispheres was recorded between June and August of 1978 at Rockfield Studios in Wales and Advision Studios in London with the band and Terry Brown once again producing. The album kicks off with the 18 minute second part to the previous album, 1977's A Farewell To Kings' concluding track Cygnus X-1(Book One: The Voyage) entitled Cygnus X-1(Book Two: Hemispheres) and is about the division of the brain and has the heart and mind struggling with one another with Cygnus being the bringer of Balance. The music of bassist/vocalist/keyboardist Geddy Lee and guitarist Alex Lifeson was arguably on top of its game and drummer Neil Peart's lyrics are top-notch on Hemispheres. The piece is incredible and the musicianship is fantastic. Side two kicked off with Circumstances which was a nice short below 4 minute rocker with Geddy singing in more of a lower register on the verses and his then-trademark high pitched vocal in the chorus and featured excellent synthesizer work from Geddy as well(Hemispheres was the first album that Geddy used a polyphonic synthesizer which played whole chords unlike the Moog used on A Farewell to Kings which was monophonic). Next is The Trees which is still a concert favorite 25 years later and an excellent song and starts as an acoustic number then goes into full throttle hard rock. The album finishes with the nine and a half minute La Villa Strangiato which is arguably the band's best instrumental. The song was recently played on their Vapor Trails tour and Alex Lifeson would add a different hilarious speech before the song goes into the end of the track(when I saw Rush play in July, 2002 in Boston, Alex's rant was about quitting smoking and he started to smoke socks) and was the highlight of each show. This album still sounds great for a 25-year old album, especially with the remastering Bob Ludwig did on this and all of the Mercury/PolyGram efforts. Also, you get all the original artwork that came with the album and the poster(in CD size) with the band on stage that came with this album originally. I demand you buy Hemispheres.