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Il secondo episodio del "trip metallico" dei Rush anni 90 è questo "Test for echo". È la naturale prosecuzione del precedente "Counterparts", sebbene il livello medio dei brani presenti sia livemente inferiore.
L'inizio infatti, con il brano che dà il titolo all'album, non mi sembra dei più riusciti: riffs "spinti", alternati da pause arpeggiate (ben lontane da quelle, magiche, degli anni 70) , e la linea vocale di Geddy Lee che, per cantare strofe di lunghezza non facilmente gestibile, finisce per essere piatta e poco fluente. La successiva "Driven" si fa decisamente preferire, introdotta dal solito riff ultra-heavy tipico di questa fase della loro carriera, ma più immediata e coinvolgente, con azzeccati stacchi acustici. I due successivi pezzi "Half the world" e "The color of right" sono piacevoli, ma di sicuro non passeranno alla storia. Di ben altra pasta "Time and motion", il brano che maggiormente ci ricorda i Rush storici: una atmosfera cupa e misteriosa, con una struttura musicale che potrei descrivere come "una suite di progressive rock sintetizzata in cinque minuti". Grande pezzo.
Belle le ariose aperture melodiche (in un contesto comunque di puro hard rock) di "Totem", mentre "Dog years" è praticamente heavy metal , ma di buona fattura. La successiva "Virtuality" invece si candida come uno dei peggiori brani di sempre dei Rush: sembra persino impossibile che l'abbiano scritto gli stessi autori di "Red Barchetta". Ci si riprende ampiamente con i tre pezzi finali: la prima "Resist" è un bellissimo brano melodico (ma non una vera e propria ballata) che evoca spazi sconfinati, "Limbo" è uno strumentale atipico, con squarci di solenni tastiere, accelerazioni e bruschi stop sottolineati dagli armonici della chitarra di Lifeson, e infine "Carve away the stone" potente e raffinata nello stesso tempo.
"Test for echo" dunque preso in sè e per sè è un disco di buona qualità, da apprezzare però dopo molti ascolti. La prima volta che l'ho ascoltato l'avrei buttato dalla finestra, ma è comprensibile, d'altronde li ho conosciuti nel 1981 con "Moving pictures". È come fare l'amore per la prima volta con Miss Universo; è chiaro che tutte le altre successive "subiscono il paragone". . .
Elenco tracce testi e samples
01 Test for Echo (05:55)
Here we go -- vertigo
Video vertigo
Test for echo
Here we go -- in slo-mo
Video vertigo
Test for echo
Some kind of trouble on the sensory screen
Camera curves over caved-in cop cars
Bleacher-creatures, would-be desperados
Clutch at plausible deniability
Don't touch that dial --
We're in denial
Until the showcase trial on TV
Some kind of pictures on the sense o'clock news
Miles of yellow tape -- silhouetted chalklines
Tough-talking hood boys in pro-team logo knock-offs
Conform to uniforms of some corporate entity
Don't change that station
It's Gangster Nation
Now crime's in syndication on TV
What a show -- vertigo
Video vertigo
Test for echo
Touch and go -- in slo-mo
Video vertigo
Test for echo
Some kind of drama live on satellite
Hidden camera coverage from the crime scene to the courtroom
Nail-biting hood boys in borrowed ties and jackets
Clutching at the straws of respectability
Can't do the time?
Don't do the crime
And wind up in the perp walk on TV
02 Driven (04:27)
DRIVEN
Driven up and down in circles
skidding down a road of black ice
Staring in and out storm windows
Driven to a fool's paradise
BUT IT'S MY TURN TO DRIVE
Driven to the margin of error
Drivent to the edge of control
Driven to the margin of terror
Driven to the edge of a deep, dark hole
Driven day and night in circles
Spinning like a whirlwind of leaves
Stealing in and out of back alleys
Driven to another den of thieves
BUT IT'S MY TURN TO DRIVE
Driven in-Driven to the edge
Driven out-On the thin end of the wedge
Driven off-By things I've never seen
Driven on-By the road to somewhere I've never been
IT'S MY TURN TO DRIVE
The road unwinds toward me
What was there is gone
The road unwinds before me
And I go riding on
06 Totem (04:58)
I've got twelve disciples and a Buddha smile
The Garden of Allah, Viking Valhalla
A miracle once in a while
I've got a pantheon of animals in a pagan soul
Vishnu and Gaia -- Aztec and Maya
Dance around my totem pole
I believe in what I see
I believe in what I hear
I believe that what I'm feeling
Changes how the world appears
Angels and demons dancing in my head
Lunatics and monsters underneath my bed
Media messiahs preying on my fears
Pop culture prophets playing in my ears
I've got celestial mechanics
To synchronize my stars
Seasonal migrations -- daily variations
World of the unlikely and bizarre
I've got idols and icons, unspoken holy vows
Thoughts to keep well-hidden --
Sacred and forbidden
Free to browse among the holy cows
That's why I believe
Angels and demons inside of me
Saviors and Satans all around me
Sweet chariot, swing low, coming for me
08 Virtuality (05:43)
Like a shipwrecked mariner adrift on an unknown sea
Clinging to the wreckage of the lost ship Fantasy
I'm a castaway, stranded in a desolate land
I can see the footprints in the virtual sand
Net boy, net girl
Send your signal 'round the world
Let your fingers walk and talk
And set you free
Net boy, net girl
Send your impulse 'round the world
Put your message in a modem
And throw it in the Cyber Sea
Astronauts in the weightlessness of pixellated space
Exchange graffiti with a disembodied race
I can save the universe in a grain of sand
I can hold the future in my virtual hand
Let's dance tonight
To a virtual song
Press this key
And you can play along
Let's fly tonight
On our virtual wings
Press this key
To see amazing things
Like a pair of vagabonds who wave between two passing trains
Or the glimpse of a woman's smile through a window in the rain
I can smell her perfume,
I can taste her lips
I can feel the voltage from her fingertips
Net boy, net girl
Send your heartbeat round the world
09 Resist (04:23)
I can learn to resist
Anything but temptation
I can learn to co-exist
With anything but pain
I can learn to compromise
Anything but my desires
I can learn to get along
With all the things I can't explain
I can learn to resist
Anything but frustration
I can learn to persist
With anything but aiming low
I can learn to close my eyes
To anything but injustice
I can learn to get along
With all the things I don't know
I can learn to resist
Anything but temptation
I can learn to co-exist
With anything but pain
I can learn to compromise
Anything but my desires
I can learn to get along
With all the things I can't explain
You can surrender
Without a prayer
But never really pray
Pray without surrender
You can fight
Without ever winning
But never ever win
Win without a fight
11 Carve Away the Stone (04:05)
You can roll that stone
To the top of the hill
Drag your ball and chain
Behind you
You can carry that weight
With an iron will
Or let the pain remain
Behind you
Chip away the stone
(Sisyphus)
Chip away the stone
Make the burden lighter
If you must roll that rock alone
You can drive those wheels
To the end of the road
You will still find the past right
Behind you
Try to deny
The weight of the load
Try to put the sins of the past night
Behind you
Carve away the stone
(Sisyhpus)
Carve away the stone
Make a graven image
With some features of your own
You call roll the stone
To the top of the hill
You can carry that weight
With an iron will
You can drive those wheels
To the end of the road
You can try to deny
The weight of the load
Roll away the stone
(Sisyhpus)
Roll away the stone
If you could just move yours
I could get working on my own
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