Rush has returned to the studio.
The rock legends are bunkered down in a Toronto studio, recording the long-awaited follow-up to 1996's Test For Echo.
Rush-Geddy Lee, Alex Lifeson and Neil Peart-began recording their new album in earnest with producer Paul Northfield in mid-August after spending much of the year in pre-production mode writing and arranging songs and recording home demos.
Northfield previously engineered such Rush classics as Signals, Exit Stage Left, Moving Pictures and Permanent Waves and co-produced the last Rush release, Different Stages, a triple-disc live effort released in 1998. The Canadian has also produced I Mother Earth, Moist and Honeymoon Suite and engineered and/or mixed albums for Hole, Marilyn Manson and Ozzy Osbourne.
Rush toured following Test For Echo but, as the album's cycle drew to a close, drummer Peart lost his daughter to a car accident and his wife to cancer, resulting in the long hiatus. Peart remarried in California last September.
Singer Lee issued a solo album, My Favourite Headache, in November, but did not tour to support the CD.
The band has not pegged a title or a release date for the new album but their label, Anthem, will attempt to keep restless fans happy by issuing a DVD remaster of their early 90's Chronicles video collection with an additional track, "Afterimage" from 1984's Grace Under Pressure. The collection is scheduled to be issued Sept. 25 in the US with the Canadian release to follow soon after, althought the exact date has yet to be determined.