Vapor Trails Remixed (2013)
1.One Little Victory
2.Ceiling Unlimited
3.Ghost Rider
4.Peaceable Kingdom
5.The Stars Look Down
6.How It Is
7.Vapor Trail
8.Secret Touch
9.Earthshine
10.Sweet Miracle
11.Nocturne
12.Freeze
13.Out Of The Cradle
There’s a particular kind of cynicism that tends to rise whenever a new version of an old album is trotted out under the now-familiar banner of being “remixed” or perhaps “remastered.” It’s become something of a ritual in the music industry—resurrect a title every decade or so, slap on a new coat of sonic varnish, and hope that enough people are nostalgic (or gullible) enough to buy it again. Rarely is there any real difference. The music might sound marginally louder, perhaps a shade more “polished,” but little else changes. One always wonders, if this was such a marked improvement, why wasn’t it done properly the first time?
Well, for once, here is an exception to the rule.
Vapor Trails, originally released in 2002, always stood as something of a sonic oddity in Rush’s discography—not so much for the music itself, but for the way it was presented. The backstory is well known by now: Neil Peart, shattered by personal tragedy, spent years away from the band before eventually reuniting with Geddy and Alex to make music again. The result was emotionally charged, musically adventurous—and, tragically, poorly recorded.
The album's initial release was a mess of compressed frequencies, overdriven distortion, and an overall lack of clarity that rendered much of it borderline unlistenable. Fans complained. Critics winced. Geddy Lee’s vocals were often buried beneath a wall of noise, and the instrumentation—usually Rush’s calling card—sounded as though it were trying to fit through a single speaker cone. It was loud, yes. But needlessly so. And despite the passion in the performances, there was a strong sense that something had been lost between the mixing desk and the final product.
This remix, however, courtesy of Dave Bottrill, changes that. Not radically, but thoughtfully. The performances themselves remain intact. There are no rerecorded parts (save a solitary guitar embellishment at the close of Ceiling Unlimited), no gimmicks. What has changed is the space. The sound breathes now. Geddy’s vocals are clearer, the instruments are defined, and for the first time in over a decade, listeners can hear the actual architecture of these songs. It's a remix that serves the music, not the marketing department.
Listening to it now—properly—it becomes immediately evident how eclectic the album truly is. The arrangements are adventurous, even experimental in places, but this time they land with precision rather than force. One begins to wonder: had Vapor Trails originally sounded like this, would the band have continued down this creative path? Instead, the tepid reaction to the original mix perhaps nudged them back toward safer terrain, as evidenced by the more familiar textures of 2007’s Snakes & Arrows.
In any case, those who dismissed the album the first time around might find themselves pleasantly surprised. The band believed in the remix enough to even update the cover art—a subtle signal, perhaps, that this was not merely a “fresh coat of paint,” but a long-overdue restoration. For once, the phrase “remixed” actually means something. And better still, you can now listen to Vapor Trails without suffering a headache.
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