Vintage 1975 RUSH- Caress of Steel (CD, 1975) 3rd Studio Album Mercury Records. The image shows the CD cover for the Rush album "Caress of Steel." Thi

Format

CD

Vintage 1975 RUSH- Caress of Steel (CD, 1975) 3rd Studio Album Mercury Records. The image shows the CD cover for the Rush album "Caress of Steel." This album was Rush's third studio album, released on September 24, 1975. Details about the album: Genre: Progressive rock and hard rock. Tracklist: Bastille Day/I think I'm Going Bald Lakeside Park/The Necromancer/The Fountain of Lamneth. Significance: The image displays the album cover for Caress of Steel by the Canadian rock band Rush. Here's some information about the album: Release and Style: Released in 1975, Caress of Steel further developed Rush's hard rock and progressive rock sound, featuring long, multi-part compositions and intricate instrumental passages. Notable Tracks: It is particularly known for including two of the band's early epic pieces: "The Necromancer" and "The Fountain of Lamneth," the latter of which occupied an entire side of the original vinyl release. Commercial Reception: Despite the band's ambitions, Caress of Steel sold fewer copies than their previous album and was considered a commercial disappointment by their record company, leading to the tour being dubbed the "Down The Tubes Tour". Album Art: The album cover was originally intended to be silver to evoke a "steel" appearance, but a printing error resulted in the copper color seen in the image. Track Listing Highlights: Key tracks include "Bastille Day," "I Think I'm Going Bald," "Lakeside Park," "The Necromancer," and "The Fountain of Lamneth". Caress of Steel[a] is the third studio album by Canadian rock band Rush, released on September 24, 1975, by Mercury Records. It was recorded immediately after the band concluded touring in support of their previous album, Fly By Night, and marked a development in the group's sound, moving from the blues-based hard rock style of their debut towards progressive rock. Caress of Steel is considered Rush's first progressive rock album.[6] Songs such as "The Necromancer" furthered Rush's advancement into narrative-driven, fantasy-based compositions, while "The Fountain of Lamneth" was their first prog-rock "epic". Other tracks like "Bastille Day" and "Lakeside Park" became staples of the band's live setlists. Side one: "Bastille Day" concerns the storming of the Bastille during the French Revolution.[11] "I Think I'm Going Bald" was written in reference to Kim Mitchell, lead guitarist and vocalist for Max Webster who shared management and touring. "Lakeside Park" is about the park of the same name in Port Dalhousie, St. Catharines, Ontario, where Peart grew up and worked during the summer as a teenager. [12] "The Necromancer" is a 12-minute track in three parts. It concerns a necromancer, someone who practices necromancy, a type of divination involving the summoning of spirits of the deceased. The song was influenced by the works of author J. R. R. Tolkien; the necromancer, is an alias used by the character Sauron in Tolkien's novel The Hobbit (1937). The introduction contains the lyric, "Three travelers, men of Willow Dale," a reference to the band itself, as Lifeson had formed the first incarnation of Rush in the Toronto suburb of Willowdale. The final section, "Return of the Prince", sees the return of the character By-Tor from the song "By-Tor and the Snow Dog" on Fly by Night, but in "The Necromancer", the character is a hero and not a villain.[13] "Return of the Prince" was released as a single in Canada. Side two: "The Fountain of Lamneth" is the band's first of three side-long tracks, the others being the title track of 2112 in 1976 and "Cygnus X-1, Book II: Hemispheres" from Hemispheres in 1978. It consists of six parts and tells the story of a man in search of the Fountain of Lamneth as he chronicles the occurrences on his journey. The second part, "Didacts and Narpets," consists mostly of a drum solo. In 1991, Peart said that the shouted words heard are an argument between the central character and the Didacts and Narpets (anagrams of "addicts" and "parents", respectively). He could not remember what the words were, "but they took up opposite positions like: 'Work! Live! Earn! Give!' and like that."[14]