Roll The Bones Kansas

Roll The Bones

Rush

Atlantic, 1991

REVIEW BY: Jason Warburg

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: 06/12/2008

Rush has so many albums -- 18 studio and 5 live by my last count -- that it’s easy to overlook one or two. Imagine my surprise when I was checking the high stacks of the DV Archives (over 5,400 strong) and discovered a big, dusty hole where Roll The Bones ought to be.

Not that it’s ever been one of the original Canadian power trio’s more well-known discs -- it’s a true sleeper, eclipsed by earlier classics like 2112 and Moving Pictures, and overshadowed by latter-day “return to form” albums like Vapor Trails and Snakes And Arrows.

What it is for me, is the album that got me back into Rush, after a decade of largely ignoring what had been one of my favorite bands in high school. Rush, like all too many groups of their vintage, spent a good part of the 80s tinkering with synthesizers. And while there are strong moments to be found on albums like Signals and Power Windows, there’s little with the immediate, visceral impact of a “Closer To The Heart” or a “Limelight.”

I hadn’t bought a Rush album since Moving Pictures when Roll The Bones came out in 1991, but something -- premature nostalgia, most likely -- compelled me to pick it up, and I’ve never regretted the impulse. This, folks, is in fact one of the stronger albums in Rush’s entire four-decade catalog.