By 1996, when Rush released Test for Echo, their sixteenth album, they already had a storied and successful career. Rush started as a stereotypically early 70s heavy blues rock band that lost their original drummer just days before touring to promote their debut album. Fortunately, Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson found Neil Peart, who not only kept the band intact but elevated it greatly. With Peart now one third of Rush, the trio moved in a decidedly progressive direction, creating long, winding epics, with themes of Ayn Rand-inspired individualism and nebulous science fiction. The 80s grounded Rush; Lee and Lifeson discovered melody and started composing more concise songs, inspired by new wave, reggae, synthpop, and funk. Peart’s lyrics became more earthly too, dealing with technology, the Cold War, and the Holocaust. The 90s meant more change for Rush, who derived inspiration from emerging alternative rock and metal bands. Across three decades and sixteen albums, what more did Rush have to prove? What musical worlds were Lee, Lifeson, and Peart yet to conquer?
Test for Echoes proved to be Rush’s last album of the 90s. After the tour for Test For Echoes, a tour where Neil Peart reinvented his style of drumming to be more jazzy, more swingy, he experienced tragedy; his teenage daughter was killed when she had departed home for the long drive to university, and just eighteen months later his first wife succumbed to cancer. Understandably, Peart felt utterly lost. He effectively retired and left to travel the Americas on motorcycle to rediscover himself. Rush was shelved, with Lee and Lifeson unsure if the band would return. The two made solo albums in the interregnum period until Peart returned to Canada. Rush reconvened, and began recording in 2001. What more did Rush have to conquer? They had to prove that they could return from the brink. The resulting album was Vapor Trails, released on May 14th, 2002.
Twenty years later, Vapor Trails is a fascinating work of art. My fascination with the album starts with its reputation; Vapor Trails is one of Rush’s more poorly received albums. Vapor Trails came in sixteenth place out of nineteen on Ultimate Classic Rock and Return of Rock’s rankings of Rush albums, sixteenth out of twenty on Stereogum’s list (they count Rush’s 2004 cover EP Feedback). It didn’t appear on Rolling Stone’s reader-decided list of Rush’s ten best albums nor did it appear on Louder’s guide to the “best” Rush albums. Users on RateYourMusic give Vapor Trails an average rating of 3.13 out of 5, making it the third-lowest ranked studio album Rush has released, ahead only of Test for Echo and Presto. For one of rock’s most beloved bands, Vapor Trails is among their least beloved. To surmise, the two most common criticisms levied against Vapor Trails is that 1) the mastering is terrible and 2) the album is too long. The mastering is loud to the point the compression squeezed the dynamics out of the mix, making Alex Lifeson’s guitar work in particular into a ferociously sludge-y audio attack, often at the expense of Peart’s drumming. Vapor Trails is from start to end 67 minutes long, making it the longest album of Rush’s career. Of course, Rush fans are well used to long epics, but for many fans, the length of the album is unjustified given the inconsistent songwriting – eight of the thirteen songs are over five minutes long.
In these two criticisms, the album’s mixed reputation, and the context behind the album’s production, there is a striking similarity with Metallica’s St. Anger. Before continuing the comparison, Vapor Trails is a much better album than St. Anger. The most important difference between Vapor Trails and St. Anger beyond them being made by two different bands is that Vapor Trails is a good album. Nevertheless, Vapor Trails and St. Anger were both the band’s first albums of the 2000s after around six years off from making music, hiatuses marked by internal uncertainty if both bands would survive and continue to make music. As such, both albums were created for creation’s sake; to prove that Rush and Metallica were still creative forces to be reckoned with. Both Vapor Trails and St. Anger were the heaviest and most intense albums the bands had released in many years – Vapor Trails was the first Rush album to have zero keyboards since 1975, and St. Anger was the first pure metal album Metallica had released since the Black Album in 1991. Both Vapor Trails and St. Anger were sonically harmonized with alternative rock and alternative metal movements of the late 90s and early 00s. Both albums are marked by poor sound, and both albums are overly long. And so on and so on.
The album opens with the furious drumming of Neil Peart, announcing his return triumphantly. Cognizant of how triumphant his – and Rush’s – return is, the opening track is the aptly titled “One Little Victory.” Rush knew how to open a record: “Anthem,” “Bastille Day,” the “Overture” section of “2112,” “A Farewell to Kings,” the “Prelude” in “Hemispheres,” “Spirit of the Radio,” “Tom Sawyer,” “Subdivisions,” “Distant Early Warning,” “Force Ten,” “Show Don’t Tell,” “Animate,” and “Test for Echo” are all openers to Rush albums that are not just among the band’s best songs, but also immediately set the tone for the albums they are on, giving those Rush albums a sense of cohesion. “One Little Victory” is no exception; that Vapor Trails was made is one little victory in itself. The energy of “One Little Victory” establishes that Rush aren’t phoning it in after six years off without recording. Rather, they’re animated with urgency. Confidence, but urgency.
The tempo of the album slows down after the barrage of “One Little Victory,” but manages to maintain the urgency without the kinetic power of “One Little Victory.” Indeed, Vapor Trails is Rush’s most emotional album since 1984’s Grace Under Pressure. Unlike Grace Under Pressure, which was defined by its creamy, synth-dominated production and themes of Cold War nuclear anxiety, Vapor Trails is instead a heavy, noisy, introspective examination of processing grief. Both lyrically and sonically, Vapor Trails conveys a certain astonishment about life; that the grief Peart is experiencing is real and not a bad dream. The way Geddy Lee uses his voice on the album, through adding multiple layers of backing vocals – something which he had done little of in the past – adds a strong sense of uncertainty to the album. See the wordless vocals sung by Geddy on “Ghost Rider” from the bridge 4:00 to 4:29. Paired with the lyrics, “Nothing can stop you now” being the most common saying in the song, “Ghost Rider” aptly conveys Peart’s feelings of hollowness, so lost the only way to rediscover himself was to pack his stuff up, hop on his motorcycle, and just leave. “Ghost Rider” also shares the name of Neil Peart’s book about his journey, both in a physical and spiritual sense.
“Peaceable Kingdom” is probably the angriest and most metal-tinged song on the album, lyrically dealing with the emerging War on Terror. Ignoring the lyrics, it still well-articulates the anger of the grieving process exceptionally well. “The Stars Look Down” returns to the discombobulation of “Ghost Rider.” The chorus of “What is the meaning of this?/And the stars look down./What are you trying to do?/And the stars look down./Is it something I said?/And the stars look down?/Something you’d like me to do?/And the stars look down/” from “The Stars Look Down,” where the question parts of the chorus are sung more prominently than the more distant-sounding refrain of “And the stars look down.” This chorus is paired with Alex Lifeson’s guitar line being played in reverse, as if the narrator is going over the past, wondering how things could have gone so wrong.
The title track and the following few songs are the emotional heart of the album, dealing with Peart’s grief most directly. “The sun is turning black/The world is turning grey/All the stars fade from the night/The oceans drain away.” and “Silence all the songbirds/Stilled by the killing frost/Forests burn to ashes/Everything is lost.” deal with the fleeting nature of life; that one day the people around you – closest to you – can vanish without warning. An instant is all that is needed to turn one’s life upside down. If the title track is a display of sorrow at its rawest, a low-point, then “Secret Touch” is the start of the upswing back to normality writing that “The way out/Is the way in.” and “You can never break the chain/There is never love without pain/A gentle hand, a secret touch on the heart/A healing hand, a secret touch on the heart/Life is a power that remains.” Peart is obviously not “over” the loss he experienced, but “Secret Touch” articulates that there is a future beyond grief. “Earthshine,” my pick for Vapor Trails’ best song, is also part of the thematic upswing, specifically about being able to love again. “Sweet Miracle” likewise celebrates life itself as a miracle, an opportunity to be welcomed. The lyrics of this stretch of four songs gives Vapor Trails a semi-conceptual bend; though Vapor Trails wasn’t designed or marketed as a concept album, the nature of the lyrics and the order of the songs gives this part of the album continuity and coherence. They’re the album’s best songs, ordered in a logical flow that detail the worst of grief and the start of moving on.
Much of this essay, including the bulky paragraph above, has been dedicated to the lyrics of Neil Peart. This is because the lyrics are frankly Vapor Trails’ greatest strength. If there is any criticism to be levied at Rush in the 90s, it's that Neil Peart’s lyrics were surprisingly clumsy and flat, considering how excellent his imagery was during the 80s. Now, six years and a lifetime’s worth of heartbreak later, the lyrics of Vapor Trails are a contender for Rush’s best. They manage to toe the line between being philosophical while still being up-front about their emotional nature, unlike the lyrics Rush’s albums in the 90s, which felt too frank.
Musicianship is never in question when it comes to Rush; even on their weakest albums (in my opinion 1985’s Power Windows and 1987’s Hold Your Fire) the performances are always strong even if the songs aren’t. Luckily, Geddy Lee, Neil Peart, and Alex Lifeson are performing excellently on a generally strong set of songs, particularly Geddy Lee. Geddy’s bass playing is in top form across this album, utilizing massive double stops, bass chord, and ghost notes, all despite playing exclusively with his fingers. Geddy’s voice has also aged remarkably well. Obviously he can’t scream like he was able to in 1977 anymore, but his voice is strong throughout the album. As far as Alex Lifeson guitar playing and Neil Peart’s drumming go, many of the nuances are lost due to the loud mastering, though Alex and Geddy wrote some fantastic riffs throughout the album – the opening riff to “Earthshine” is massive, and “One Little Victory” and “Peaceable Kingdom” are crushingly heavy thanks to Lifeson and Peart.
Cognizant of Vapor Trails’ sound issues, a remixed version of the album was released in 2013, a version with greater sonic clarity; the drums and bass don’t melt into the wall of sound like they do in the original. Vapor Trails Remixed is certainly less exhausting to listen to as a result. The drumming in particular has more presence in the remix, whereas in the original It’s an abject improvement over the original, though frustratingly, the remixed version is not on Spotify (you can still find it on YouTube.) That said, the distortion provided by the overcompression from the original’s mastering gives the best songs on Vapor Trails – “One Little Victory,” “Vapor Trails,” “Secret Touch,” “Earthshine,” and “Sweet Miracle” – a rawness that matches the lyrics and the melancholy of the music. I won’t dispute the remix sounds better, but the best Vapor Trails offered is elevated by its intense mastering.
The only weak song on the album is “How It Is.” It’s the only song on the album resembling a pop song, with an extremely melodic intro and chorus, paired with heavier verses. It’s too sugary, far out of place on an otherwise pummelingly intense album. There are a few other songs which have thus far gone unmentioned, like “Ceiling Unlimited,” “Freeze,” and the closer “Out of the Cradle.” Those three songs are fine, but are flat compared to most of the album. They have good ideas – particularly the intro to “Freeze” – but as songs they’re somewhat unsatisfying. “Freeze” is particularly strange, as it is supposed to be the fourth iteration in the “Fear” series (“Witch Hunt” from Moving Pictures, “The Weapon” from Signals, and “The Enemy Within” from Grace Under Pressure), but has little to do with the overtly political themes of those three songs and instead deals with fear more broadly. Ironically, “Peaceable Kingdom” would have been a better fourth entry in the “Fear” suite. Additionally, “Nocturne” is very good but sounds more like “The Stars Look Down.” It’s jarring thematically to hear it after “Sweet Miracle” when it sounds more delirious than revelatory. If I was tasked with editing Vapor Trails, I would make the track-listing like this;
“One Little Victory”
“Ghost Rider”
“The Stars Look Down”
“Nocturne”
Vapor Trails”
“Secret Touch”
“Earthshine”
“Sweet Miracle”
“Peaceable Kingdom”
A new composition based on the best parts of “Ceiling Unlimited,” “Freeze,” and “Out of the Cradle” – the opening riff of “Freeze” is too good to waste.
This new version of Vapor Trails would outright cut “How It Is.” It would also drastically lower the runtime; the first nine songs in this alternate track listing would be just over 46 minutes long, and the tenth song would likely be between four and six minutes long, given the length of the other songs on the album, placing the final album between 50 to 52 minutes long. Especially if using the remixed versions, the album would be a less exhausting listen. The songwriting would be consistently great and it wouldn’t feel like a slog to get through.
I would also rename the album to Vapour Trails – Rush is Canada’s finest cultural export, they should spell like it!
Still, flaws and all, Vapor Trails is a very engaging work of art. It showed that Lee, Lifeson, and Peart’s capacity for creativity was undiminished after more than half a decade since their last studio release. Lyrically, it’s one of Rush’s best, showing that Peart’s best lyrics weren't limited to science fiction and fantasy, or technology and politics. He showed he was just as able an emotive, personal writer as he was a distant, cold, and confident one. As it turned out, there were musical worlds that Lee, Lifeson, and Peart had left unconquered, one which through great trial and tribulation, they too overcame.