• Voto:
Con quale approccio dovrei arrivare a descrivere uno dei più grandi capolavori che il rock ci abbia mai offerto finora? Sicuramente con un bel tocco di lucidità e freschezza mentale.
"Moving Pictures" rappresenta sicuramente uno degli apici della carriera di questo favoloso trio rock canadese e di fronte ad esso non si può far altro che inchinarsi. Bastano 7 canzoni per mostrare tutta la creatività a cui ci avevano abituati negli anni precedenti. Un album chiaramente ispirato al classico rock anni '80. Siamo lontani dalla potenza dell'hard rock dei dischi precedenti e probabilmente anche dalla folta vena progressive di fine anni '70, i Rush propongono canzoni sicuramente brevi ed accessibili ma senza rinunciare alle strutture complesse e alla sperimentazione che li aveva caratterizzati in passato e li caratterizzerà negli anni successivi.
L'opening "Tom Sawyer" alterna riff di chitarra puliti e diretti a sperimentazioni elettroniche, regalandoci un bel giro di synth nella parte centrale ed un bel solo di Lifeson, senza dimenticare l'ottimo drumming di Neil Peart. "Red Barchetta" ha un sound decisamente on the road: dopo l'intro con tastiere e armonici basso-chitarra il brano s'inarca su una direzione sul rock classico anni '80 con chitarre sognanti e ritmo scorrevole; lifeson non risparmia un assolo, il finale è simile all'inizio. E si arriva alla strumentale "YYZ", in cui i Rush dimostrano di essere ancora legati alle complesse strutture prog; è proprio qui che emerge veramente la classe dei tre musicisti: 4 minuti e 24 secondi in compagnia della tecnica di Lifeson e Lee e dei giochetti di Peart slla batteria... e qualche spruzzata col synth prima del riff finale. "Limelight" è invece un brano più radiofonico e immediato ma comunque suonato con gran determinazione. E "The Camera Eye", con i suoi oltre 10 minuti conferma che la vena prog dei Rush non è del tutto tramontata: l'inizio infatti è all'insegna della sperimentazione pura grazie ai pregevoli sintetizzatori suonati magistralmente da Geddy Lee; tuttavia il resto del brano segue la strada classic rock intrapresa nelle altre tracce senza però dimenticare i sintetizzatori.
Altro capitolo decisamente più sperimentale è "Witch Hunt": intro decisamente fantasy ben eseguita dalle tastiere, poi si passa da strofe all'insegna delle chitarre ritmiche di Lifeson a ritornelli contrassegnati dalla potenza dei synth, stavolta molto più massicci rispetto alle altre tracce. E chiudiamo con "Vital Signs" un lussuoso anticipo di quello che i Rush ci regaleranno negli anni a venire: brano dal peculiare reggae-rock in stile Police, influenzato dall'elettronica.
E allora... buon ascolto con "Moving Pictures"!
Elenco tracce testi samples e video
01 Tom Sawyer (04:33)
A modern day warrior
Mean mean stride
Today's Tom Sawyer
Mean mean pride
Though his mind is not for rent
Don't put him down as arrogant
His reserve, a quiet defense
Riding out the day's events -
The river
What you say about his company
Is what you say about society
- Catch the mist - Catch the myth
- Catch the mystery - Catch the drift
The world is the world is
Love and life are deep
Maybe as his skies are wide
Today's Tom Sawyer
He gets high on you
And the space he invades
He gets by on you
No, his mind is not for rent
To any god or government
Always hopeful, yet discontent
He knows changes aren't permanent -
But change is
What you say about his company
Is what you say about society
- Catch the witness - Catch the wit
- Catch the spirit - Catch the spit
The world is the world is
Love and life are deep
Maybe as his eyes are wide
Exit the warrior
Today's Tom Sawyer
He gets high on you
The energy you trade
He gets right on to
The friction of the day
02 Red Barchetta (06:10)
My uncle has a country place, that no one knows about
He says it used to be a farm, before the Motor Law
And on Sundays I elude the 'Eyes', and hop the Turbine freight
To far outside the Wire, where my white-haired uncle waits
Jump to the ground
As the Turbo slows to cross the borderline
Run like the wind
As excitement shivers up and down my spine
Down in his barn
My uncle preserved for me an old machine -
For fifty-odd years
To keep it as new has been his dearest dream
I strip away the old debris, that hides a shining car
A brilliant red Barchetta, from a better, vanished time
Fire up the willing engine, responding with a roar!
Tires spitting gravel, I commit my weekly crime...
Wind in my hair -
Shifting and drifting -
Mechanical music -
Adrenalin surge -
Well-weathered leather
Hot metal and oil
The scented country air
Sunlight on chrome
The blur of the landscape
Every nerve aware
Suddenly, ahead of me, across the mountainside
A gleaming alloy air-car, shoots towards me, two lanes wide
I spin around with shrieking tires, to run the deadly race
Go screaming through the valley as another joins the chase
Run like the wind
Straining the limits of machine and man
Laughing out loud
With fear and hope, I've got a desperate plan
At the one-lane bridge
I leave the giants stranded
At the riverside
Race back to the farm
To dream with my uncle
At the fireside...
04 Limelight (04:19)
Living on a lighted stage
Approaches the unreal
For those who think and feel
In touch with some reality
Beyond the gilded cage
Cast in this unlikely role
Ill-equipped to act
With insufficient tact
One must put up barriers
To keep oneself intact
Living in the Limelight
The universal dream
For those who wish to seem
Those who wish to be
Must put aside the alienation
Get on with the fascination
The real relation
The underlying theme
Living in a fisheye lens
Caught in the camera eye
I have no heart to lie
I can't pretend a stranger
Is a long-awaited friend
All the world's indeed a stage
And we are merely players
Performers and portrayers
Each another's audience
Outside the gilded cage
Living in the Limelight
The universal dream
For those who wish to seem
Those who wish to be
Must put aside the alienation
Get on with the fascination
The real relation
The underlying theme
Living in the Limelight
The universal dream
For those who wish to seem
Those who wish to be
Must put aside the alienation
Get on with the fascination
The real relation
The underlying theme
The real relation
The underlying theme
05 The Camera Eye (11:01)
I.
Grim-faced and forbidding
Their faces closed tight
An angular mass of New Yorkers
Pacing in rhythm
Race the oncoming night
They chase through the streets of Manhattan
Head-first humanity
Pause at a light
Then flow through the streets of the city
They seem oblivious
To a soft spring rain
Like an English rain
So light, yet endless
From a leaden sky
The buildings are lost
In their limitless rise
My feet catch the pulse
And the purposeful stride
I feel the sense of possibilities
I feel the wrench of hard realities
The focus is sharp in the city
II.
Wide-angle watcher
On life's ancient tales
Steeped in the history of London
Green and grey washes
In a wispy white veil
Mist in the streets of Westminster
Wistful and weathered
The pride still prevails
Alive in the streets of the city
Are they oblivious
To this quality?
A quality
Of light unique to
Every city's streets
Pavements may teem
With intense energy
But the city is calm
In this violent sea
06 Witch Hunt (04:45)
(Alex Lifeson)
The night is black
Without a moon
The air is thick, and still
The vigilantes gather on
The lonely torchlit hill
Features distorted in the flickering light
The faces are twisted and grotesque
Silent and stern in the sweltering night
The mob moves like demons possessed
Quiet in conscience, calm in their right ---
Confident their ways are best
The righteous rise
With burning eyes
Of hatred and ill-will
Madmen fed on fear and lies
To beat, and burn, and kill
They say there are strangers, who threaten us
In our immigrants and infidels
They say there is strangeness, too dangerous
In our theatres and bookstore shelves
That those who know what's best for us ---
Must rise and save us from ourselves
Quick to judge
Quick to anger
Slow to understand
Ignorance and prejudice
And fear
Walk hand in hand
07 Vital Signs (04:46)
Unstable condition:
A symptom of life
In mental,
And enviromental
Change
Atmospheric disturbance -
the feverish flux,
Of human interface
And interchange
The impulse is pure -
Sometimes our circuits get shorted,
By external interference
Signals get crossed -
And the balance distorted
By internal incoherence
A tired mind become a shape-shifter
Everybody need a mood lifter
Everybody need reverse polarity
Everybody got mixed feelings
About the function and the form
Everybody got to deviate
From the norm
An ounce of perception -
A pound of obscure,
Process information
At half speed
Pause:
Rewind - replay -
Warm memory chip
Random - sample -
Hold the one you need
Leave out the fiction -
The fact is;
This friction,
Will only be worn by persistence
Leave out conditions -
Courageous convictions,
Will drag the dream into existence
A tired mind become a shape-shifter
Everybody need a sharp filter
Everybody need reverse polarity
Everybody got mixed feelings
About the function and the form
Everybody got to elevate
From the norm
Everybody got mixed feelings
Everybody got mixed feelings
Everybody got to deviate
From the norm
Everybody got to deviate
From the norm
Everybody got to elevate
From the norm
Everybody got to elevate
From the norm
Everybody got to elevate
From the norm
Everybody got to elevate
From the norm
Everybody got to escalate
From the norm
Everybody got to elevate!
Everybody got to elevate
From the norm
Everybody got to deviate
From the norm
(fade)
Carico i commenti... con calma
Altre recensioni
Di Zarathustra
"Se tutto ciò fosse brillantemente sintetizzato in 3 musicisti, di cosa parleremmo? Di tritolo allo stato puro, ovviamente. I Rush."
"Ascoltetelo, molte band metal (o prog-metal che si voglia...) vi sembreranno un pelino meno straordinarie."
