Rush released Presto on November 21, 1989. Their 13th studio album opened a new relationship with Atlantic Records and a production partnership with Rupert Hine. Inside the band, the priority was just as clear: give the songs stronger melodies and make more room for Geddy Lee’s voice.
The decision to make another record had followed a pause. In his essay for the 1990 tour program, Neil Peart described a six-month break during which the band’s future was uncertain. Changing record companies had left them without the usual deadlines, and they spent time away from touring and recording. When Lee and Alex Lifeson met at Peart’s house, the question was what they wanted to do next. They chose another album, then rented a house in the country where Lee and Lifeson developed music while Peart worked on lyrics. They could concentrate during the week and return home on weekends.
Peart wanted musicianship, songwriting and arrangement to work together. The parts still had to challenge the players, but their skill needed to serve songs that would remain satisfying through repeated performances on tour.
Hine gave that work an outside perspective. Peart valued his experience as a songwriter and performer, particularly his contributions to vocal and keyboard arrangements. The connection had nearly happened years earlier: Lee explained on Rockline in December 1989 that Rush had tried to work with Hine on Grace Under Pressure. For Presto, their schedules finally aligned. Sessions took place at Le Studio in Morin Heights, Quebec, and McClear Place in Toronto, with the album mixed at Metropolis in London. Lee recalled that extensive preparation had worked out the problems before recording began, allowing the sessions to proceed smoothly.
“We wanted it to be more of a singer’s album,” Lee told Canadian Musician in April 1990. He had written more on bass and wanted less dependence on computers and synthesizers. Hine shared that preference, though neither side treated it as an absolute ban. Keyboards remained part of the finished arrangements, adding color where the songs called for it. The change was about what led the writing.
“Show Don’t Tell” offered a practical example. Lifeson supplied a guitar riff that Lee felt needed no alteration; Lee contributed the chorus, and they developed the verses together. “The Pass” required a different approach. They treated Peart’s lyrics as a script for the music, building the song around what the words needed to express. Its subject was teenage isolation and the danger of romanticizing suicide, giving the album’s emphasis on the voice a particularly serious purpose.
That willingness to follow a lyric also changed the shape of “Hand Over Fist.” Rush had planned an instrumental for the album and were collecting musical pieces for it. As Lee explained on Rockline, Peart kept producing lyrics, and one set fit the material they had reserved. The instrumental became a vocal song. Lee also described the scissors, paper and stone chant as a strong rhythmic starting point for writing music.
Presto reached No. 16 on the Billboard 200, while “Show Don’t Tell” topped Billboard’s Album Rock Tracks chart. The production relationship continued into the next studio album: Hine returned for Roll the Bones in 1991.
