Test For Echo, released on September 10, 1996, is (as of this writing) the most
recent
studio release from
Rush. Test for
Echo seems to capture a certain
playfulness that was less present in the previous two releases,
Roll the Bones
and
Counterparts. There are serious songs, like the title track apparently about
media coverage of crime in the
United States, and
Half The World; there are also
silly-seeming tracks, like
Dog Years and
Limbo (a picture in the book shows a
German Shepherd
wearing a tag that says
Rush Limbo; I recall
Geddy Lee saying in an interview
that he thought
Primus was the closest to
Rush in terms of being some sort of
heir.
For some reason, while I like listening to this album, I will rarely pull it out. I feel it lacks
a certain cohesiveness; most jarring to me is the transition from Virtuality to Resist, as the
former is a driven song and the latter is slower. In fact, just about all of the other tracks on this
disc are fairly driven; Resist, while a lovely song about the Scottish nature, is out of place.
Tracklist:
- Test For Echo (5:56)
- Driven (4:27)
- Half The World (3:43)
- The Color Of Right (4:49)
- Time And Motion (5:01)
- Totem (4:58)
- Dog Years (4:55)
- Virtuality (5:44)
- Resist (4:24)
- Limbo (instrumental) (5:29)
- Carve Away The Stone (4:05)