Нежное прикосновение стали (Nezhnoye prikosnoveniye stali)

1975 studio album by Rush

Caress of Steel is the third studio album by Canadian rock band Rush, released on September 24, 1975, by Mercury Records. It was recorded immediately after the band concluded touring in support of their previous album, Fly By Night, and marked a development in the group's sound, moving from the blues based hard rock style of their debut towards progressive rock. Songs such as "The Necromancer" furthered Rush's advancement into narrative driven, fantasy based compositions, while "The Fountain of Lamneth" was their first prog rock "epic" to span an entire side of vinyl. Other tracks like "Bastille Day" and "Lakeside Park" became staples of the band's live setlists. Though the band members were initially proud of their work on Caress of Steel, the album proved to be a commercial and critical nadir for Rush as the album's darker sound and fantastical compositions failed to find an audience and confused some of the band's peers, while poor sales put the band in danger of being dropped by Mercury. The mediocre reception impacted the band's gigging opportunities, leading them to dub the supporting tour the "Down The Tubes Tour". Despite being more positively viewed by the band's fans in retrospect, Ultimate Classic Rock noted that the album is still considered "the black sheep of their catalog".

Caress of Steel was released on September 24, 1975. By March 1976, it had sold around 40,000 copies in Canada. Although the band initially had high hopes for the album, it sold fewer copies than Fly by Night and was considered a disappointment by the record company. The album eventually became known as one of Rush's most obscure and overlooked recordings, consequently being considered under rated by fans. The complete album, along with the self titled debut and Fly by Night, was included as part of the 1978 Anthem release Archives.

Caress of Steel received negative reviews from professional critics. AllMusic's Greg Prato described the album as "one of Rush's more unfocused albums", while Daily Vault's Christopher Thelen called it "a tentative step for Rush, one which would lead to their masterpiece in conceptual work", in reference to the group's next album, 2112.

A remaster was issued in 1997. The tray has a picture of the star with man painting (mirroring the cover art of Retrospective I) with "The Rush Remasters" printed in all capital letters just to the left. All remasters from Rush through Permanent Waves (1980) are like this. The remaster adds the album's back cover and gatefold (which included band pictures and lyrics) to the packaging which was not included on the original CD. Caress of Steel was remastered again in 2011 by Andy VanDette for the "Sector" box sets, which re released all of Rush's Mercury era albums. Caress Of Steel is included in the Sector 1 set. Caress of Steel was remastered for vinyl in 2015 as a part of the official "12 Months of Rush" promotion. The high definition master prepared for this release was also made available for purchase in 24 bit/96 kHz and 24 bit/192 kHz formats, at several high resolution audio online music stores. These masters have significantly less dynamic range compression than the 1997 remasters and the "Sector" remasters by Andy VanDette.

All songs written by Geddy Lee, Alex Lifeson, and Neil Peart, except where noted.