GUP was a heavy guitar album and was a reaction to Signals. They had Hugh Padgham (of The Police fame) set as the producer and he pulled out right before hitting the studio.
And that's why it misses for me. It was SUPPOSED to be a "heavy guitar album" but rather than channel the "Jimmy Page" of most of the rest of the catalogue, he channeled "Andy Summers". Andy Summers is a lot of things, most of them great, but "heavy guitar" is not one of them. Plus, those drums sounds... ack.
I would say you did a disservice to yourself. This wasn't 1974 Alex, This was 1984 Alex and you should have known the influences of that time.
I wouldn't argue that; oddly I love - I mean, "Top Five Or So Rush Albums Ever" love - the albums around it (Signals and Power Windows). I don't know the best analogy, except maybe food: Alex's guitar playing at that time was like garlic; in a spaghetti sauce, it's AWESOME (Signals), and on a pizza it's AWESOME (Power Windows), but on breakfast cereal, it's not (p/g). My biggest beef with p/g is not Alex, it's Neil. That drum sound. The best example is the fill on "Red Sector A" right before Geddy sings "I hear the sound of gunfire at the prison gates..."; that should be an epic, for-the-ages Neil Peart drum fill - like the roll at the start of Subdivisions, textured, nuanced, evocative - and instead it sounds like Naked Eyes, "Always Something There To Remind Me". If Rush was Dream Theater, instead of playing "Peruvian Skies" and interpolating "Have A Cigar" and "Enter Sandman", or playing "Surrounded" and interpolating "Mother" and "Sugar Mice", they'd play "Red Sector A" and interpolate "Always Something There To Remind Me".
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