Grace Under Pressure
In Memory of Robbie Whelan.
Released Mercury, 12 April, 1984.
- Distant Early Warning (4:59)
- Afterimage (5:04)
- Red Sector A (5:10)
- The Enemy Within (Part I of Fear) (4:34)
- The Body Electric (5:00)
- Kid Gloves (4:18)
- Red Lenses (4:42)
- Between the Wheels (5:44)
Produced by Rush and Peter Henderson. Engineered by Peter Henderson
In a word, bleak. A desolate, empty landscape with the occasional, shattered stump overlooking a pool of black water, the air thick with noxious gases, this is the world conjured by ‘Grace Under Pressure’. It is deliberately unclear whether it is a return to past battlegrounds or a post-apocalyptic vision, and indeed the image it conjures of the dark side of human nature is applicable to both.
Not least in the album’s centrepiece, ‘Red Sector A’, its title innocuously enough based on the band’s vantage point for the Space Shuttle launch reported on the previous album. On the surface Neil wanted to capture an abstract view of some futuristic prison, but the song was more fundamentally based on a direct description of wartime concentration camps Auschwitz, Belsen and the like. “Are we the last ones left alive,” sings Geddy, echoing the feelings of his mother Manya at the liberation of her own camp, her disbelief that there could be anything left outside the wire, and perhaps his disbelief that he could ever be accused of fascism, given his family history. The band were feeling introspective and prepared to reveal more of themselves, not least the singer who had discussed with the others the horrors of the camps and their impact on his parents.
Almost as a deliberate decision to break continuity with its more derived predecessors, the music on ‘Grace Under Pressure’ is downcast, appropriate for the theme but in contrast to the band’s New Wave influences. The opening bars of the environmental call to arms ‘Distant Early Warning’ return us to Alex at his dissonant best, backed with reverberating drums and keyboards. The guitarist is well and truly back at the centre of things, as illustrated by ‘Kid Gloves’: ostensibly about keeping up appearances, but the line ‘Anger play the fool’ could have been written for the guitar player. “I’m not giving up on implausible dreams,” went part 3 of the ‘Fear’ trilogy ‘The Enemy Within’, the reggae-backed words echoing the band’s determination to press forward despite the difficulties it was facing inside the ranks. Indeed, the cry for help that was ‘The Body Electric’ might well have been just as much from the band members as from a distressed android.
Some songs don’t try quite so hard to hide their subjects. ‘Afterimage’ for example, was written for Le Studio engineer Robbie Whelan, who would do anything for anyone, and who had been killed in a car accident only months before. And where no amount of clever drumming could bash life into ‘Red Lenses’, all can be forgiven with the brilliance of ‘Between The Wheels’, a heartfelt diatribe about our inability to react to the bigger events we face. ‘Bright images flashing by, like windshields towards a fly…’ even as the song quashes our dreams, its very existence, drawn from the ashes of despair by a band struggling to keep afloat, offers some hope for the future.
Introspective, indeed.