Why did it happen? It shouldn’t have happened.

But Roll The Bones did indeed happen, and it did startlingly good business, becoming Rush’s biggest-selling album in America since Signals. Although it was wonderful to see Rush in the public consciousness in America more than usual, as mainstream rock music enjoyed its last days of fun before the miserable post-grunge wave washed it away, it’s the one Rush album that has gone on to age the worst.

Like on Presto two years earlier, Roll The Bones saw Lee, Lifeson, and Peart recording with producer Rupert Hine, who had taken the high-gloss style the band had created with Peter Collins and molded it in a more guitar-oriented style that made it a little more palatable for classic rock fans. Interestingly, though, unlike Presto’s wildly bipolar range from inspired to abysmal, aside from three legitimately good moments, Roll The Bones settles into a rut of complacent mediocrity.

To this day I don’t understand why “Dreamline” became the band’s biggest Stateside radio hit in years, but when it was released in the fall of 1991, the upbeat track swiftly ascended to the top of the mainstream rock chart. Granted, it is a very good little song, a propulsive road movie of a rocker, Peart’s restless lyrics (“We’re only at home when we’re on the run”) going well with the simple yet ominous driving riff that looms over the song like darkening clouds on the horizon. “Bravado” is structurally every bit the equal of “The Pass” — so much so that both songs were played on alternate nights on Rush’s 2012-’13 tour — and it very nearly succeeds just as well, thanks to Lifeson’s soulful guitar work and Peart’s fluid drumming. “Ghost Of A Chance,” meanwhile, might be a total lightweight compared to classic Rush rock tracks, but its robust groove is countered by a lovely, introspective chorus. All three songs would go on to be well liked by the band and its audience, with “Dreamline” being a longtime concert staple.

The rest of Roll The Bones, unfortunately, is a portrait of Rush sounding utterly lost. “Face Up,” “The Big Wheel,” “Neurotica,” and “You Bet Your Life” are tepid, severely lacking something to ground them, whether guitars or keyboards. Instead is a milquetoast, sleek combination of the two, either afraid or unwilling to go in one particular direction. “Heresy” is as inexcusable as the similarly Midnight Oil-aping “Scars” was on Presto.

And the title track. Oh, the title track. “Roll The Bones” already flirts with disaster with its horn synth stabs, which already sounded passé in 1991, but the song will forever live in infamy for the mid-song rap, performed by a pitch-shifted Lee and cloyingly written by Peart. It’s like a dad walking in on a teen basement party and rapping along to “Going Back To Cali” or “Fight The Power.” He’s not trying to lampoon the genre, he’s just trying to come across as hip, and it only feels awkward and kind of sad:

“Jack, relax/ Get busy with the facts/ No zodiacs or almanacs/ No maniacs in polyester slacks/ Just the facts/ Gonna kick some gluteus max/ It’s a parallax, you dig?”

Um…yeah. I, erm, dig. Please don’t do that anymore.

Roll The Bones did monstrously in America, returning the band to the platinum echelon for the first time since 1985’s Power Windows, but like every other band from the 1970s and 1980s, Rush would have to adjust with the most dramatic sea change in rock history thanks to a host of slovenly musicians from Seattle. Its dabbling in pop had pulled the band down a rabbit hole, rendering the brand out of date, and a serious adjustment would be needed if the guys had any hope of clawing out with integrity intact.