Fly By Night
	Produced by RUSH and Terry Brown
	Released on February 1975
	US CHART POSITION #113 . . . PLATINUM RECORD (12/1/93)
	Find it at GEMM
P2 22542 cover

T hey came riding from the North, ready to do battle with the notion that progressive rock was a dying art form. No disservice to John Rutsey, but new drummer/lyricist Neil Peart was the final plate in this power trio’s armor, as Fly By Night makes plain. This is a firestorm of a record, with music delivered in great chunks of hot metal: the epic “By-Tor and The Snow Dog,” the searing “Beneath, Between and Behind,” et al. Peart’s drumming, sometimes treated with an echo, is the perfect foil to Lee’s impassioned (if awkwardly high register) vocals and Lifeson’s gargantuan guitars. At this stage, Rush hadn’t incorporated the standard Lee/Lifeson/Peart credits for their music, allowing various members to pair off in songwriting (including a song written completely by Lee, “Best I Can”). The title track, which served as the album’s single, is as catchy a song as they’ve written over their career (the style is reprised on “In The End,” my personal favorite on here). The Led Zeppelin comparisons still hold on a few tracks, notably “Making Memories,” which sounds like an outtake from Houses of the Holy (or a southern boogie band, given Lifeson’s leads). The band also slips into Genesis territory on the delicate “Rivendell,” with Lifeson stretching out the guitar notes a la Steve Hackett. Fly By Night may find the band groping for their own voice, but what I hear is a band throwing down the gauntlet and challenging for their own fiefdom in prog rock’s storied land.

SRM-1-1023 front cover [high resolution photo]	SRM-1-1023 back cover

TRACK LISTING

1. ANTHEM    (Geddy Lee/Alex Lifeson/Neil Peart)    4:10
2. BEST I CAN    (Geddy Lee)    3:24
3. BENEATH, BETWEEN & BEHIND    (Alex Lifeson/Neil Peart)    3:00
4. BY-TOR & THE SNOW DOG    (Geddy Lee/Alex Lifeson/Neil Peart)    8:57
     I. At The Tobes of Hades
     II. Across The Styx
     III. Of The Battle
     IV. Epilogue
5. FLY BY NIGHT    (Geddy Lee/Neil Peart)    3:20
6. MAKING MEMORIES    (Geddy Lee/Alex Lifeson/Neil Peart)    2:56
7. RIVENDELL    (Geddy Lee/Neil Peart)    5:00
8. IN THE END    (Geddy Lee/Alex Lifeson)    6:51

CREDITS

GEDDY LEE -- bass guitars, classical guitars, all vocals, "By-Tor"
ALEX LIFESON -- electric guitars, six and twelve string acoustic guitars, "Snow Dog"
NEIL PEART -- percussion

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