Rush: A Farewell to Kings [BACK TO BLACK/MERCURY]

Why you'll love it

A Farewell to Kings was Rush's first Top 40 album in the UK and their second in the US, with "Closer to the Heart" and "Xanadu" becoming two of their most-loved songs. It's the sound of the band's sound getting bigger in every direction.

This edition

• Single LP, 6 tracks
• Back to Black/Mercury pressing
• Recorded at Rockfield Studios in Wales

About the album

Fresh off the breakthrough of 2112, Rush did something new for their fifth album: they left Toronto. The trio set up at Rockfield Studios in the Welsh countryside after their first European tour, and you can hear the change of scenery. A Farewell to Kings is bigger, more pastoral and more adventurous than anything before it, with Geddy Lee adding synthesizers and each member picking up new instruments along the way.

It's an album of extremes: "Closer to the Heart" is under three minutes of pure, hummable idealism, while "Xanadu" stretches out for eleven, a Coleridge-inspired epic with Alex Lifeson's double-neck guitar front and centre. Then "Cygnus X-1" launches toward a black hole and leaves you hanging until the next album. Prog nerds, this is your church.

Also at Kops: more Rush on vinyl · browse CDN Pop / Rock

Tracklist

Listen

On Back to Black/Mercury, a reissue of the 1977 album.