Feedback

I must say I was a little saddened on hearing that Rush were to release a mini-album of cover versions. The band had never recorded nor performed a cover of another artist's material since their earliest days - and the old "return to our roots, paying homage to our influences" ploy is of course the tactic of many an ageing band, short of ideas of their own.

But having got over my initial disappointment, I can't deny that I started to look forward to the release of Feedback, a 27-minute "tribute to those we had learned from and were inspired by", consisting of eight songs originally recorded thirty-odd years ago. I was intrigued by the selection of material and very interested to hear how my favourite band would reinterpret them. I hoped that some of these classic old tunes, by Buffalo Springfield, The Who, The Yardbirds and others, would gain new life from some of the old Rush craft and style.

Sadly, however, the old craft and style is entirely absent here. These recordings are in the main vanilla-flavoured, unimaginative, lacklustre at best; emphatically poor relations of the original versions. Rush steam through these wonderful old songs like a dismal covers band, adding nothing to them, and absolutely murdering Buffalo Springfield's For What It's Worth along the way: where the original is graceful, atmospheric and assured, Rush's interpretation is crass, thoughtless and hamfisted, utterly charmless. If ever an International Court for Crimes Against Music is convened, I'm afraid Alex, Geddy and Neil may well be called to account for this one.

It's not all completely bad news - Summertime Blues has a nostalgic whiff of the youthful spirit and punch evident on the first two Rush albums, but it's pretty well a carbon copy of a version by Blue Cheer, recorded in 1968. And it's interesting to hear Alex having a stab at at an extended heavy blues solo in Crossroads - he spanks his plank like there's no tomorrow, but for some unaccountable reason his guitar has been made to sound as if it's being played through a cheap transistor practice amp, with the tone control set to 'cheese'. In any case, again this is essentially a straight, thoughtless run-through of the Cream version, literally not worth having if you have a copy of Live At The Fillmore or one of the numerous Cream/Clapton compilation albums that Crossroads turns up on.

Overall, a miserable effort, I'm sorry to say. As I write, the band are currently on their 30th anniversary tour; after listening to Feedback I think it's probably time to call it a day.