Next Rush album to be about faith

Rush will begin recording a new album next month, and a central theme of faith has emerged from the songwriting. Drummer Neil Peart, who's the main lyricist for the band, told the Canadian Press news agency, "I tried hard to look at it as a subject -- what's good about it -- and tried to balance that against what I saw as not being a good thing. All we're seeing, especially in the world today, is a very malevolent kind of faith, in fundamentalism of all kinds, on both sides. One of the lines I use in the new songs equates Middle East and Middle West, because this stuff is going on in both localities, although both would probably be insulted by the comparison."

Peart said that he began to focus on religion while on Rush's 30th anniversary tour in 2004, when he would ride his motorcycle between cities instead of taking the bus or plane with guitarist Alex Lifeson and singer-bassist Geddy Lee. After crossing North America in that fashion and meeting with a lot of people along the way, Peart realized. "I don't need (faith) in my life, is the way I would put it. But I see other people who do and other people for whom it's definitely a positive sort of reinforcement of a kind of solace and those are all good things."

The new project should be out early next year, and there will probably be a major tour to support the album. It will be Rush's first set of all-new material since Vapor Trails in 2002. Their last release was the 2004 album Feedback, which featured covers of songs by the Who, Buffalo Springfield, the Yardbirds, and Love.
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