Rush "Caress of Steel"

Caress Of Steel is the third studio album by Canadian rock band Rush, released in 1975. The album shows more of Rush's adherence to hard progressive rock, as opposed to the blues-based hard rock style of the band's first album.

Although Rush's previous album, Fly by Night, dabbled in longer conceptual pieces such as "By-Tor & the Snow Dog," such works were the central focus of Caress of Steel. Long pieces broken up into various sections and long solo passages are two prominent elements of the album. It includes the band's first two epic pieces, "The Necromancer", and "The Fountain of Lamneth", which were also blamed for the commercial failure of the album itself; the latter runs 20 minutes total and comprises the entire second side of the original vinyl release.

The album cover for Caress of Steel was intended to be printed in a silver colour to give it a "steel" appearance. A printing error resulted in giving the album cover a copper colour. The error was not corrected on subsequent printings of the album. The cover artwork for Caress of Steel was designed by Hugh Syme, the first Rush album to feature his work. Syme has designed the cover artwork for every Rush album since.

Geddy Lee admitted in the 2010 documentary film Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage that he thought bandmates Alex Lifeson, Neil Peart and he were "pretty high" during the making of Caress of Steel.

Some cassette printings of the album altered its intended track listing, specifically switching the "Didacts and Narpets" movement of "The Fountain of Lamneth" with "I Think I'm Going Bald" (possibly because of cassette tape length and to balance out both sides). In addition, the other movements of "The Fountain of Lamneth" are listed as separate songs.

Although the band initially had high hopes for the album, it sold fewer copies than Fly by Night and was considered a disappointment by the record company. The album eventually became known as one of Rush's most obscure and overlooked recordings, consequently being considered under-rated by fans.

Due to poor sales, low concert attendance and overall media indifference, the 1975–76 tour supporting Caress of Steel became known by the band as the "Down the Tubes" tour. Given that and record company pressure to record more accessible, radio-friendly material similar to their first album – something Lee, Lifeson and Peart were unwilling to do – the trio feared that the end of the group was near. Ignoring their record label's advice and vowing to "fight or fall", 2112 ultimately paved the way for lasting commercial success, despite opening with a 20-and-a-half-minute conceptual title track.

Caress of Steel did not attain gold certification in the United States until December 1993, nearly two decades after its release. It remains one of the few Rush albums to not go platinum in the US.

A remaster was issued in 1997.

The tray has a picture of the star with man painting (mirroring the cover art of Retrospective I) with "The Rush Remasters" printed in all capital letters just to the left. All remasters from Rush through Permanent Waves are like this.

The remaster adds the album's back cover and gatefold (which included band pictures and lyrics) to the packaging which was not included on the original CD.

Caress Of Steel was remastered again in 2011 by Andy VanDette for the "Sector" box sets, which re-released all of Rush's Mercury-era albums. Caress Of Steel is included in the Sector 1 set.

Caress of Steel was remastered for vinyl in 2015 as a part of the official "12 Months of Rush" promotion. The high definition master prepared for this release was also made available for purchase in 24-bit/96 kHz and 24-bit/192 kHz formats, at several high-resolution audio online music stores. These masters have significantly less dynamic range compression than the 1997 remasters and the "Sector" remasters by Andy VanDette.

Track listing

All lyrics are written by Neil Peart; all music is composed by Alex Lifeson and Geddy Lee except where noted.

Side one

1. "Bastille Day" 4:39
2. "I Think I'm Going Bald" 3:42
3. "Lakeside Park" 4:10
4. "The Necromancer"    12:34

I. "Into the Darkness" – 4:20

II. "Under the Shadow" – 4:25

III. "Return of the Prince" – 3:51"

Side two

1. "The Fountain of Lamneth"   19:57

I. "In the Valley" – 4:18

II. "Didacts and Narpets" – 1:00

III. "No One at the Bridge" – 4:21

IV. "Panacea" (Lee) – 3:16

V. "Bacchus Plateau" (Lee) – 3:15

VI. "The Fountain" – 3:50"