Rush to Issue 40th Anniversary Edition of “Hemispheres”

Rush’s seminal album Hemispheres will be getting a 40th anniversary reissue on November 16th, the band revealed. The new release will come in four packages: a super deluxe edition, a two-CD deluxe edition, a 3-LP deluxe edition, and a deluxe digital edition.

Released in 1978, Hemispheres cemented the more progressive sonic approach that Rush started in A Farewell To Kings. They even begin the album with “Cygnus X-1 Book II: Hemispheres”, picking up from the previous album’s final track, “Cygnus X-1.” It also includes the adventurous instrumental (and bassist favorite thanks to Geddy Lee) “La Villa Strangiato.”

“Hemispheres was one of our most challenging and demanding records to make,” says Alex Lifeson. “From its inception in a Wales farmhouse where it was written over a 4 week span,” Lifeson continues, “to the very difficult mixing sessions in two London recording studios, it stands as a key transitional album in Rush’s long recording history.”

Lee also talked about the difficulty of the album with Louder Sound in 2016. “There were a lot of songs that were a lot more difficult to sing than I imagined,” he said. “I couldn’t hit a lot of notes, and I didn’t have the luxury that I have now. Now, if my voice doesn’t feel good or sound good we just shut it down and come back on another day. You get some recovery time, which is kind of logical. But with Hemispheres, we’d been in Britain for weeks and weeks making the record, and everything we did was like pulling teeth.”

The Super Deluxe 40th Anniversary Edition of Hemispheres will include two CDs, an exclusive Blu-ray disc, and three 180-gram vinyl LPs. Altogether, it includes the Abbey Road Studios 2015 remaster of the album, unreleased and restored bonus content of the band’s 1979 Pinkpop Festival performance, an unreleased performance from Tucson, Arizona in 1978, a 2018 mix of the album in surround sound, and four music videos. The music is accompanied by a 40-page hardcover book with unreleased photos and new artwork, an essay by Rob Bowman, a wall poster, and replica memorabilia from the band’s 1978 UK tour and Pinkpop Festival.