Vapor Trails is the seventeenth studio album by the Canadian rock band Rush, released in 2002 (see 2002 in music).

The release of Vapor Trails marked the first studio album for the band in six years (since Test for Echo in 1996). Long known for purposeful stylistic changes that defined individual albums as well as delineated the larger-scale phases of their recording career, Vapor Trails brought a shift in many fundamental aspects of the Rush sound as it had evolved over the years. On Vapor Trails there are no keyboards, no traditional guitar solos, and no processed-guitar tones. Instead, Vapor Trails uses a more purified guitar tone, lots of vocal, guitar and even bass overdubs, and an overall darker tone to the music and lyrics. All in all, Vapor Trails offers a dramatic rethinking of Rush's fundamental musical mores, suggesting that they have embarked on yet another new direction. However, it seems that Rush still will maintain a progressive edge as many of the songs feature odd meters, e.g. alternating 6/4, 5/4 and 4/4 in "Freeze". The album has sold over 340,000 copies since its release.

"One Little Victory"

"One Little Victory" from Vapor Trails.

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Track listing

All songs written by Alex Lifeson, Geddy Lee and Neil Peart.

1. "One Little Victory" – 5:08
2. "Ceiling Unlimited" – 5:28
3. "Ghost Rider" – 5:41
4. "Peaceable Kingdom" – 5:23
5. "The Stars Look Down" – 4:28
6. "How It Is" – 4:05
7. "Vapor Trail" – 4:57
8. "Secret Touch" – 6:34
9. "Earthshine" – 5:38
10. "Sweet Miracle" – 3:40
11. "Nocturne" – 4:49
12. "Freeze (Part IV Of Fear)" – 6:21
13. "Out Of The Cradle" – 5:03

Personnel

• Geddy Lee - bass guitar, vocals
• Alex Lifeson - electric and acoustic guitars, mandola
• Neil Peart - drums, percussion

Criticism

The production of Vapor Trails has been highly criticized due to the album's 'loud' sound quality. Albums such as this have been mastered so loud that additional digital distortion is added during the production of the CD. The trend, known as the Loudness war, has unfortunately become very common on modern rock CD's.

As explained by Rip Rowan on the ProRec website, the damaged production is the result of overly-compressed (clipped) audio levels during mastering, though Rush have admitted that there was digital distortion during recording, which also contributed to the damage. Remastering the album would not correct the damage from digital distortion that was introduced during recording, but it could correct the other, more destructive damage that is the result of overly-compressing the audio during mastering.

Chart positions

Album

Billboard Music Charts (North America)

Singles