Hemispheres is the sixth studio album by the Canadian rock band Rush, released on October 24, 1978, by Anthem Records in Canada and Mercury Records elsewhere. After the commercial and critical success of A Farewell to Kings (1977), the band returned to Rockfield Studios in Wales to record the follow-up with long-time co-producer Terry Brown. The recording process was notoriously difficult, with the band spending several weeks writing and arranging the material in the studio—a departure from their usual practice of entering sessions with completed songs.
The album is considered a peak of the band's progressive rock period, characterised by complex time signatures and multi-part suites. The first side of the original vinyl is occupied by the 18-minute epic "Cygnus X-1 Book II: Hemispheres", which concludes the story left as a cliff-hanger on A Farewell to Kings of a space explorer who is drawn into a black hole and is caught in a struggle between the Greek gods Apollo and Dionysus. These themes of duality are depicted on the covert artwork by Hugh Syme. Side two features the singles "Circumstances" and "The Trees", giving the band greater FM radio airplay, and concludes with the nearly ten-minute instrumental "La Villa Strangiato", which the band cited as their most technically challenging piece to record at the time.
Upon release, Hemispheres reached No. 14 on both the Canadian and UK charts and peaked at No. 47 on the US Billboard 200. It was certified silver in the UK and eventually achieved platinum status in both Canada and the United States. While contemporary critics were divided over the complexity of the long-form tracks, retrospective reviews have hailed the album as a definitive progressive rock masterpiece. The intense sessions for the album left the band exhausted and directly influenced their subsequent shift toward the more concise, radio-friendly arrangements found on their next album, Permanent Waves (1980).
Background and recording
In May 1978, Rush finished touring A Farewell to Kings, which contributed to their breakthrough in the UK market, following a series of well-received shows and "Closer to the Heart", the lead single from the album, reaching No. 36 in the UK. Following a dedicated rest period, the band regrouped to produce a follow-up album and returned to Rockfield Studios in Monmouthshire, Wales, to record as they had enjoyed making A Farewell to Kings at the facility. Bassist and vocalist Geddy Lee said recording in the United States did not appeal to the group, and since they were influenced by many English bands, recording in the UK was an attractive idea. In a departure from previous albums, the band entered the songwriting process without any preconceived ideas. They rented a farmhouse close to the studio for two weeks of intensive writing and rehearsals, during which the trio had concerns over the direction the new album was to take.
thumb|left|upright|Rockfield Studios
Hemispheres was recorded in June and July 1978, then the longest amount of time Rush had to record an album–in comparison, 1976's 2112 was recorded in five weeks and A Farewell to Kings in four. Book I concerns an unnamed space explorer who travels to Cygnus X-1, a black hole, in its space ship and is pulled into it. In Book II, his wandering soul emerges into Olympus, who witnesses the gods Apollo and Dionysus caught in the struggle between mind and heart, the two leading types of people: those who follow science and knowledge and build cities but with no emotional attachment, and those who live in forests but experience love. The clash leads to the world splintered into different hemispheres, and a silent scream from the explorer is heard by the two gods who reconsider and unite. They name the explorer Cygnus, the god of balance, and the world is restored with truth and love co-existing. The sequel, like Book I, uses mythology and symbolism to depict a conflict between the gods Apollo and Dionysus, which is resolved when Cygnus intervenes, claiming a balance of heart and mind are what is needed for humans to live well. Peart introduced the gong and timpani to his percussion set for the first time; he hadn't thought of adding the instrument on previous albums but thought it was needed for Hemispheres.
Side two
"Circumstances" is the first of two shorter tracks on Hemispheres. With the band having accustomed its audience to longer, more elaborate formats, this song is qualified by Lee as an experiment, It was the sole piece that developed from the two-week rehearsal period the group had prior to entering the studio. and he and Peart pointed out that they spent more time recording "La Villa Strangiato" than their second album, Fly by Night. Peart recalled the group spent four days and nights playing it repeatedly, playing even when tired and with sore hands: "We were determined to get the whole thing perfect, but in the end I just couldn't do it, and we ended up putting it together from a few different takes." The segments "Monsters!" and "Monsters! (Reprise)" are taken from "Powerhouse", a 1937 jazz instrumental by Raymond Scott.
Artwork
The cover was designed by longtime Rush collaborator, graphic artist Hugh Syme. The front depicts a figure that resembles the one in the painting The Son of Man by surreal artist René Magritte who is standing on the left side of a human brain. He is looking in the direction of a nude man in a ballet pose who is standing on the right side. The overall image was Syme's own creation, but it developed from discussions with Peart about the left and right and the Apollonian and Dionysian parts of the brain, itself a theme covered in Peart's lyrics to "Cygnus X-1 Book II: Hemispheres". The Magritte figure is Syme's longtime friend Bobby King, who was also the nude model for Rush's Starman logo on 2112 that Syme had also designed. The naked male is a dancer from the Toronto Ballet School. The brain was loaned to Syme from the Department of Anatomy at the University of Toronto Faculty of Medicine for him to photograph and the final design was completed with a composite. The background was a combination of airbrush and paint. Syme started working on the design before he had heard any music on the album.
Release
Prior to its release, Hemispheres aired in its entirety on Rick Ringer's radio show on CHUM-FM in Toronto, on October 5, 1978, with the band as studio guests.
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Nevada State Journals Pat O'Driscoll, who had a prejudice against power trios and initially thought of Rush as another "uppity heavy metal band that mechanically ground out mindless drivel", had his expectations exceeded with Hemispheres.
Geoff Barton gave Hemispheres three stars in Sounds in an article where he pondered if it "is a masterwork or a mistake". On one hand, he said the album is "a lovingly crafted, highly complex album ... brimful with profound lyrical statements" and "music with a message (trite but true)". But on the other, Barton thought it finds Rush "wallowing way, way out of their depth ... it seems impossible to think that this band were once honest, unpretentious purveyors of straight-forward, hard-hitting heavy metal music. Now, having forsaken basic beginnings. Rush sound ambitious beyond their musical means." In a review for Circus magazine, Bart Testa wrote the band plays "stupendous fanfare music" and noted their positive sentiments in the songs. He favoured "Cygnus X-1 Book II" over the side-long suite on 2112 as it showcased a better performance from the band, noting their ability to "interlock metal whirlwinds" driven by Peart's drumming. However, Testa noted "Circumstances" was the only one true "song" on the record, "and it's not very good, either."
O'Driscoll praised Rush for dispensing traditional philosophy in a manner that would appeal a hard rock/heavy metal genre, with "simple-yet-intricate words with occasional sly twists".
Similar to their other albums, reviewers thought highly of Rush's instrumental performances. O'Driscoll suggested Lee's "defiant cackle" suited Peart's "thundering percussion" and Lifeson's "slick lead guitar work". Reviewing the album for the magazine, Michael Bloom stated, "Overall, especially in 'La Villa Strangiato', Lifeson, Peart and Lee prove themselves masters of every power-trio convention. In fact, these guys have the chops and drive to break out of the largely artificial bounds of the format, and they constantly threaten to do so but never quite manage." In the review for AllMusic, Greg Prato favourably compared the album to the band's previous work, "While the story line isn't as comprehensible as 2112 was, it's much more consistent musically, twisting and turning through five different sections which contrast heavy rock sections against more sedate pieces."
In 2023, John Cunningham of WhatCulture wrote: "Prog rock never got quite so conceptually insane as the 18-minute intro track on Rush's 1978 LP. [...] As the '80s rolled in, Rush bid farewell to the more over the top set pieces of their earlier years. Hemispheres is a near-perfect showcase of their ambitious '70s run before they arguably reached their peak in the decade after."
Tour
Rush supported the album with a 137-date tour of Canada, the US, and Europe between October 1978 and June 1979. It marked the band performing longer sets and in larger venues across Canada, including three sold out dates at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto in December 1978, culminating in a show on New Year's Eve. Rush were in considerable financial debt at the start of the tour, and Peart said they hoped to pay it off using receipts from the first leg and make a profit on the second. The group would not tour with a profit until their next album, Permanent Waves.
Reissues
{|class="wikitable plainrowheaders"
|-
|+ Reissues
|-
! scope="col" | Year
! scope="col" | Label
! scope="col" | Format
! scope="col" | Notes
|-
! scope="row" |1987
|Anthem
|CD
|
|-
! scope="row" |1997
|Anthem
|CD
|Digitally remastered
|-
! scope="row" |2011
|Anthem
|CD
|Digitally remastered
|-
! scope="row" |2018
|Anthem/Mercury
|CD, LP
|40th Anniversary Edition with previously unreleased live content.
|}