Neil Peart Featured in the February 2020 Issue of PROG Magazine - Articles Now Online

Neil Peart Featured in the February 2020 Issue of PROG Magazine - Articles Now OnlineUpdate: The March 2020 issue of Classic Rock magazine also includes a nice tribute to Neil Peart. I've made that article available at this LINK. Thanks to RushFanForever for providing the article.
The February 2020 issue of PROG Magazine features Neil Peart on the cover and includes several feature articles on the late Rush drummer.

The main article, titled Suddenly You Were Gone was penned by Philip Wilding, the prolific journalist who has covered Rush numerous times in the past. Additional articles within the issue include Hail the Professor written by Chris McGarel, Making Memories written by Tim Ponting, Force Ten written by Gary Mackenzie, and The Enigma of Neil Peart written by Martin Kielty.

In the aforementioned Hail the Professor, Chris McGarel details ten examples of Neil's lyrical writing prowess including Between the Wheels from Grace Under Pressure:
Grace Under Pressure contains some of Peart’s best writing. Its eight songs capture the 80s zeitgeist of Cold War paranoia, holocaust (both nuclear and actual), societal fear and the loss of individual identity through technology. The summation of these concerns is Between The Wheels, a song even more relevant now in the age of rolling news saturation (‘Soaking up the cathode rays’; ‘Bright images flashing by/Like windshields towards a fly.’) Economic depression and dystopian future are juxtaposed against the American Dream: ‘We can fall from rockets’ red glare/Down to “Brother, can you spare?”/Another war – another wasteland/And another lost generation.’
Similarly, the piece titled Force Ten has Gary Mackenzie discussing many of Neil's stand-out drum performances, including interestingly enough The Garden from Clockwork Angels:
The closing track from Rush’s final studio album places under the spotlight a largely overlooked aspect of Peart’s playing. While much of Clockwork Angels harks back to earlier, rockier, guitar-weighted compositions and boasts possibly the heaviest drum sound ever featured on a Rush album, The Garden demonstrates Peart’s musical intelligence. No drums at all for the first couple of minutes and when they enter they’re not particularly outlandish. The craft here is knowing when and how to support the song, and the gradual build in intensity from the guitar solo through to the tune’s denouement is masterful. The fact that the rather beautiful lyric resonates so deeply now is just an added reason to give it a listen.
You can read all of the articles online via the following LINK.

Comments

Share This