Enter the warrior. Review on Moving Pictures - Rush

Tom Sawyer. What's there to say about one of the band's signature songs? This is best played at full volume, banging your head and singing ''His mind is not for rent to any god or government'' at the top of your lungs. What you say about this song is what you say about society. Red Barchetta. Sounds like some sort of cocktail, maybe made with cherry juice and Kentucky bourbon. But it's not. It's a love song to a car. Or maybe a love song to one's uncle. Either way, a fine one it is. YYZ opens with the band getting cute with stereophonics and a bell, then transitions into harsh, sledgehammery notes, followed by what can only be described as schizophrenic guitar and drum work. This is where the album begins sinking into something akin to mediocrity and desperation. Limelight offers a brief reprieve from the abyss of dismality, but it doesn't completely recover before the next song. The Camera Eye opens with traffic sounds and bizarre synthesizer distortions, mixed in with what appear to be the clicks of a manual typewriter. This may be the weakest track on the album. The opening synthstrumental gets tiresome long before the lyrics kick in. On the beginning of Witch Hunt, the band falls into the New Age trap of thinking windchimes are musical instruments. This track may appeal to the Dungeons & Dragons crowd, but the rest of us are out of luck. On the closing track of the album, Vital Signs, the band returns to it's strengths - the Tom Sawyer licks and Free Will vocals. While it's not as strong as those two songs, it's much better than the previous two. So, is it a horrible album redeemed by three tracks, or a fantastic album ruined by four tracks? I guess that's for you to decide. In my book, it's worth the purchase price. I can always skip over everything but ''Tom Sawyer,'' ''Red Barchetta'' and ''Limelight.''