THE UNIVERSAL DREAM

Rush's February 1981 masterpiece Moving Pictures ushered in a previously uncharted era that brought prog-rock closer to the heart of the masses. And now, 41 years later, this landmark album gets its further due, thanks to a truly comprehensive multidisc box set and a fully immersive Dolby Atmos mix.

- MIKE METTLER

ALEX LIFESON and I are on Zoom, talking about the genre-challenging sounds put forth by his new band, Envy of None. Over the years, Lifeson and I have talked countless times in person and over the phone about the groundbreaking music he's made throughout his long and storied career, whether it be his boundary-stretching guitar work in the legendary Canadian super trio Rush; the creative chances he took with Victor, his first-ever solo project in January 1996; or the just-mentioned Envy of None, a new four-piece collective whose adventurous self-titled debut was just released in April 2022.

During this particular Zoom call, Lifeson is visibly perched in front of an impressive studio wall populated by row after endless row filled with some truly amazing gear. Naturally, I can't help but inquire about one particular guitar I spy that I'm 99.99 percent sure was responsible for one of the most moving sound sequences in the entirety of Rush's recorded C.V., a vaunted canon that spans almost five full decades.

"Yeah, that's my Hentor, the guitar I used for the solo on 'Limelight,”” Lifeson clarifies with a nod and a grin, referring to the cheekily renamed hybrid Fender Stratocaster outfitted with a Floyd Rose vibrato arm. Besides its Envy of None deployment, said Hentor is indeed the guitar that supplied the thoughtful, elegiac solo in "Limelight," one of Rush's signature songs that Lifeson has told me on more than one occasion, "remains my favorite of all the guitar solos I've ever done."

And that's the power of popular music right there, boiled down to a few sentences. Just by Lifeson's namechecking the 1981 song title "Limelight," many of us instantly conjure the vibe, tone, and feelings the song and its subject matter elicit, most especially the character of his emotive, note-sustained, and expertly restrained guitar solo.