Vapor Trails
| Vapor Trails | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
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| Studio album by Rush | ||||
| Released | May 14, 2002 September 30, 2013 (Remixed CD) |
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| Recorded | January 2001 - March 2002, Reaction Studios, Toronto;Metalworks Studios, Mississauga, Ontario | |||
| Genre | ||||
| Length | 67:15 | |||
| Label |
Anthem (Canada) Atlantic |
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| Producer | Rush, Paul Northfield | |||
| Rush chronology | ||||
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| Vapor Trails Remixed | ||||
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| Singles from Vapor Trails | ||||
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| Professional ratings | |
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| Aggregate scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| Metacritic | (75/100) |
| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| AllMusic |   |
| The Austin Chronicle | |
| Billboard | (favorable) |
| Blender | |
| E! Online | B+ |
| Entertainment Weekly | B+ |
| PopMatters |   |
| Q | |
| Rolling Stone | |
Vapor Trails is the seventeenth studio album by Canadian rock band Rush, produced by Paul Northfield and released in May 2002. Its release marked the first studio album for the band since Test for Echo in 1996 (the longest gap between Rush albums to date) because of personal tragedies that befell drummer Neil Peart in the late 1990s. According to the band, the entire developmental process for Vapor Trails was extremely taxing and took about 14 months to finish, the longest the band had ever spent writing and recording a studio album. Despite controversy surrounding its production and sound quality, the album debuted to moderate praise and was supported by the band's first tour in six years, including first-ever concerts in Mexico City and Brazil, where they played to some of the largest crowds of their career. The album was certified gold in Canada in August 2002.
The song "Ghost Rider" appeared on the album and was written by Peart as a tribute to his travels around the US and Canada after his personal tragedies, while "One Little Victory" served as the first single in order to announce the band's return from hiatus.
The original audio mix of the album received criticism for its heavy use of dynamic range compression. Dissatisfied with this mix, Rush had the album mixed again and re-released as Vapor Trails Remixed in 2013. It was released separately and as a part of the box set The Studio Albums 1989–2007.
Vapor Trails is the first album since Caress of Steel to not feature keyboard/synthesizer music at any point. Instead, it incorporates many layers of guitar, bass guitar, drum and vocal tracks, as well as more personal lyrics.
Much of the recordings were from one-off jam sessions and many of the original takes from those sessions were used to construct the songs. Rush made extensive use of computers and music editing software to piece the jam session recordings into songs. Neil Peart remarked,
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