THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Rush continue their comprehensive 40th anniversary album series with new and expanded editions of the band’s decade-defining 1982 release Signals, an album that signified how they were in no way detached and subdivided from the ever-shifting 1980s musical landscape.
Rush’s ninth studio album was released in September 1982, and its technology-embracing riffs and rhythms followed the forward-thinking trajectory of the acclaimed Canadian trio as they continued to chart the demands of a new decade. The album’s eight songs built upon Rush’s penchant for adapting to the flow of the times without compromising their flair for melding long-established progressive roots with radio-friendly song arrangements. Signals, co-produced by Rush with longtime confidant Terry Brown and engineered by Paul Northfield, was their third session at Le Studio in Morin-Heights, Quebec. The band’s synergistic recording process had been well-established during sessions for Moving Pictures, as well as that album’s predecessor, January 1980’s Permanent Waves.
Subdivisions, the generation-defining leadoff track on Signals, succinctly captures the angst of the perennial restless dreams of youth. The synth-driven song became one of Rush’s most celebrated FM favourites as well as a cherished concert staple for many years to come. Next, the band shifts gears and leans back into the wide-eyed yearnings of The Analog Kid, a propulsive track that reached No. 19 on the Mainstream Rock chart. Meanwhile, the quest for emotional interactivity reaches a combustive head in the connective musical tissue of Chemistry. Side A closes out with the fast-forward thinking of Digital Man, presaging our eventual reliance on the 0s and 1s that now permeate our daily lives.
Side B commences with the angular thrust of The Weapon (subtitled Part II of Fear), a rumination on personal apprehension and doubt that also serves as a modernized offshoot of the mob-mentality prejudices of Witch Hunt (Part III of Fear) from Moving Pictures. The Weapon became another Rush live staple featuring a video introduction courtesy of Count Floyd, one of Joe Flaherty’s many notable characters from SCTV. The kinetic, reggae-tinged lilt of New World Man peaked at No. 21 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart, Rush’s lone Top 40 hit in the U.S. The beautiful Losing It, a starkly honest assessment of knowing when the optimal-performance curtain is coming down and how to gracefully deal with its consequences (or not), features poignant electric violin accompaniment from Ben Mink. Losing It was never played onstage until Rush’s final R40 Live Tour in 2015, with Mink reprising his role in Toronto and Jonathan Dinklage of the Clockwork Angels Ensemble performing in the U.S. The album wraps with the optimistic skyward views of Countdown, an unabashed celebratory chronicle of the launch of the Space Shuttle Columbia in 1981. Countdown also features approved audio of the voice communications between the astronauts and ground control.
The Super Deluxe Edition includes one CD, one Blu-ray Audio, one high-quality 180-gram LP with new artwork from original album designer Hugh Syme, and four 7” singles (Subdivisions, Countdown, New World Man and The Weapon (Single Edit), all with new artwork from Syme. The set encompasses the Abbey Road Mastering Studios 2015 remastered edition of the album for the first time on CD. The Blu-ray Audio contains the core album, newly mixed from the original multi-tracks in 48kHz 24-bit Dolby Atmos and 96kHz 24-bit Dolby TrueHD 5.1 by producer/engineer Richard Chycki, alongside the previously available 48kHz 24-bit PCM Stereo mix. Also on the Blu-ray are new animated visualizers for all eight songs, as well as two remastered promo videos: The high-school halls narrative of Subdivisions and Countdown, featuring authorized Space Shuttle Columbia launch footage. Additionally, the LP in the Super Deluxe Edition has been cut via half-speed Direct Metal Mastering on an audiophile LP pressed at GZ Media in the Czech Republic.
The Super Deluxe Edition also includes a 40-page hardcover book with new song illustrations and artwork by Syme, and unreleased photos from the Signals Tour, along with three lenticular lithographs that transition from the original black-and-white band headshots into the original album’s Digital Man colour headshots; four Signals Tour band lithographs; Syme’s original album cover sketch lithograph; and a double-sided 24” x 24” poster featuring Syme’s new Signals artwork on one side, and an outtake photo from the original album cover shoot on the other. All contents are housed in a premium lift-top box featuring reimagined cover artwork by Syme.”
