Former Rush guitarist Alex Lifeson made such an impression on the Mute Gods with his contribution to their new album that they rewrote the song to make best use of his work.

The prog trio of Nick Beggs, Roger King and Marco Minnemann will release its third LP Atheists & Believers on March 22. Lifeson collaborated on the six-minute track “One Day"; his acoustic guitar can be heard right at the start.

You can listen to the song below.

“I was a huge fan of Rush and would listen to their music ad nauseam as a teenager,” frontman Beggs told Prog in a new interview. “And the strange world we both inhabit, our paths crossed on a number of occasions, professionally and socially. When this [album] came around I had the opportunity to ask him if he wanted to do something together and he said, ‘Send me some stuff.’ So I did and he went, ‘I really like this.’”

The result was Lifeson’s 12-string acoustic part, which was originally planned to act as the song's closing section. But, as Beggs noted, “I liked what he did so much that I re-edited the whole track and put the outro as the intro, just broke everything down. So now the whole thing starts with me singing with his acoustic guitar. It was just a gift.”

Atheists & Believers follows the Mute Gods’ 2017 album Tardigrades Will Inherit the Earth and explores “the state of the world as we know it now,” with Beggs’ lyrics covering subjects including “politics, humanity and love.”

 

 

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