20 Rush Albums in 20 Days: Snakes and Arrows

DAY EIGHTEEN: Snakes and Arrows, running time 62:45, released May 1, 2007

Snakes and Arrows has been compared with the Rush recordings of the late 70s.  It is anything but.  Four huge distinctions: the busier, grungier production; the less melodic vocal parts over meterless poetry; the minor-key leanings; and the overall length of the recording.  Now, that doesn’t necessarily suggest that it’s a poor effort, and there is a younger generation of Rush fans who love this album.  For me, Snakes and Arrows is a laborious listening experience, like wading through an endless sea of mud.  Sure, it feels kind of cool during those first few steps, all squishy and thick, but before too long, your calves hurt and your toenails are full of gook.

My major gripe is the minor key drudgery of the songs.  So dark, so monotone, so unsingable, one after another after another.  Nearly every song begins and ends in a minor key, each sounding much like the one that preceded it.  As I’ve stated before, I’m a melody guy for the most part, but the lyrics here – like many of those on Vapor Trails – once again feel like they were jerry-rigged into the songs; meterless, rhymeless poetry that doesn’t lend itself well to tunes.  Try singing the verses to “Armor and Sword.”  If you can do it, you are a better man that I (or maybe just a bigger Rush fan).  And the verses of “The Way the Wind Blows” are an absolute mess, undermining a fine chorus.  Now, nothing says you can’t have lyrics that are difficult to sing and that don’t lend themselves to traditional melodic phrasing, and Rush seems to have embraced this technique as of late, but for me, it simply doesn’t provide for a pleasurable listening experience.

The album starts off strong with “Far Cry” and there’s enough good stuff happening in “Spindrift” for me to recommend that song (I love the simplicity of the musical theme and the chorus), but even this song loses its way during a wretched bridge with Geddy backing himself up on vocals (a technique he employs way too often).  That’s about as much as I’d care to return to if I was compiling a best-of Rush mix tape.   Rush’s nineteenth album is clearly a superior effort than Vapor Trails in terms of production, but as far as the songs go, I actually prefer the earlier release.

Snakes and Arrows features three instrumentals, which isn’t a bad idea for an aging band known for its virtuoso instrumentalists.  If they worked at it, Rush could actually make an album entirely of instrumentals.  But here, they’re just okay, lacking the melodic themes of a “YYZ” or even a “Where’s My Thing,” serving more as interludes between vocal songs than as features.  “The Main Monkey Business” goes on forever without going anywhere, but “Hope” is a nice Lifeson piece, again aimless, but short and pleasant.

Tomorrow, I’ll be listening to…drum roll, please…number 20, Rush’s latest, Clockwork Angels, which means that in two days I’ll be ending my journey with the polarizing Caress of Steel.  That outta be interesting.

20 Rush Albums in 20 Days: A Farewell to Kings

DAY SEVENTEEN: A Farewell to Kings, running time 37:13, released September 1, 1977

2112 was a very good album with great musicianship, but the compositions were harmonically and rhythmically basic.  Not so on Rush's followup, A Farewell to Kings.  Here, the band pushes the envelope, shifting moods with the effective use of tuned percussion and synthesizers, juggling time signatures and producing one of its finest albums to date.

A Farewell to Kings is all about creating atmosphere, and it often takes its time getting there.  Lifeson’s classical guitar that opens the album brings to mind Old England, and the guitar swells that open “Xanadu” evoke mystery and wonder (and lead to my second-favorite Lifeson guitar part of all-time at 1:48).  It takes a full five minutes before Geddy sings a note, and it’s this deliberate pace that works so well on the album.  Despite the album’s brief length, Rush is in no hurry to get anywhere, each track transpiring all in good time.  The marriage of tuned percussion and synthesizer at various points (5:59 of “Xanadu,” for instance) work well, and the musicianship is stunningly good throughout.

Side two opens with a radio-friendly tune (I can only imagine the relief Mercury Records must have felt upon hearing it), “Closer to the Heart,” with its universal lyrics and terrific solo by Lifeson, and “Cinderella Man” is another gem (the cheesy use of panning during the guitar solo notwithstanding) penned by Lee.  Both of these tunes are better than any of the shorter tracks on 2112 with the possible exception of ”A Passage to Bangkok.”  The band had grown in leaps and bounds in one year.  Even the ballad “Madrigal” works beautifully and benefits from brevity, something Rush should have considered with “Rivendell” just a few years prior, and it also works better than the ballad “Tears” from 2112.

The album ends with another ambitious effort, “Cygnus X-1,” and once again the pacing is superb.  After a brief spoken introduction, it isn’t until minute five that Geddy begins to sing.  The song rocks at that point, only to recede at 7:15, building the tension required to highlight the song’s inevitable, blistering conclusion. The strummed guitar chords at the song's end leave the listener with a sense of mystery and suggest the song's sequel, ”Hemispheres."

In short, A Farewell to Kings may not be the album you want to listen to in the car between errands after work, but if you’ve got some time to sit back and take it all in, you might not find a better Rush album.  It’s likely going to be number two on my list.

Tomorrow, I’ll be listening to…drum roll, please…number 19, Snakes and Arrows, one of those efforts that newer Rush fans worship.  We’ll see what this old guy thinks of it.

20 Rush Albums in 20 Days: Roll the Bones

DAY SIXTEEN: Rush, Roll the Bones, running time 48:04, released September 3, 1991

For me, Roll the Bones is the sister of Presto, much like Hemispheres and A Farewell to Kings, Signals and Grace Under Pressure, Power Windows and Hold Your Fire, etc.  It seems like Rush tends to pursue a sound for two albums and then moves onto new endeavors.  Here, they continue the more prominent guitar sound (albeit trebly, crunchy guitar without much meat to it) with keyboards providing a significant bedding; it’s not yet the harder-edged full sound of Counterparts, but it’s getting there. 

Gone are the days of silence between the notes.  On Roll the Bones, there’s always something filling in the soundscape – a droning keyboard, the long ring of a snare’s reverb, an overdubbed guitar – a trend that started with Signals (and I’m not sure has stopped yet), and this the only part of the production that drives me a bit bonkers.  A little more dynamic range and an occasional moment of silence would have been welcome.

But this is a minor quibble.  Roll the Bones is an excellent album.  There are Rush fans who hate this era of the band, but for me this album is smack dab in the middle of Rush’s second golden era (the first starting at 2112 and ending at Moving Pictures).  You’ve got good melodies over a rocking, upbeat sound, mostly in major keys (something anathema to the band on Snakes and Arrows), but the biggest asset is Peart’s accessible, relatable lyrics.  Yes, he makes the lyrical sin of rhyming “chance,” “dance” and “romance” (seriously – what’s next?  Cool, fool and school?  Love, dove and above?), but then he throws out gems like “Distance is a long-range filter/Memory a flickering light.”  Here, Peart writes of fate, youth, chance, randomness, circumstances, love, dreams – all relatable stuff for a band that used to write about black holes, monsters and battling gods.

The rap in the title track is a lot of fun, and the band played it for many years on tour, almost to the point of being overplayed (much like “Dreamline” and “Force Ten”), but here too Alex mucks up the rap by playing lead guitar over it.  Silly.  “Bravado” and “Heresy” are fantastic slower songs with terrific messages, and the chorus of “Ghost of a Chance” is as close to adult contemporary that the band has ever come (and you know what?  It’s fricking good).  Rush wisely limits the album's length to 48 minutes plus, a full four minutes less than Presto.  Even still, the album loses some of its momentum with the final two tracks, “Neurotica” and “You Bet Your Life.”  Still decent songs, however, and when push comes to shove, Roll the Bones is on par with Presto, which for me means definitely in the top ten albums that Rush has produced.

Oddly, selections from this album have been hard to come by live.  Only five tracks were played on the Roll the Bones tour, and since then, only three have made it into the rotation.  I would love to hear “Heresy” or “The Big Wheel” live – something other than the first three tracks – but as usual Rush leans on familiar ways.

Tomorrow, I’ll be listening to…drum roll, please…number 5, A Farewell to Kings.  This album had me mesmerized when my brother purchased what I remember to be a cutout of this 1977 release.  We’ll see if it still has the magic.

20 Rush Albums in 20 Days: Signals

DAY FIFTEEN: Rush, Signals, running time 43:12, released September 9, 1982

The change between Moving Pictures to Signals is enormous, the latter providing a richer texture with more keyboards, a fuller sound and an electric violin to boot.  Even Geddy’s voice is different here, as he uses his lower register throughout and employs heavy reverb and delay.  I was expecting not to like Signals very much, and to be sure, it falls flat on a few tunes, but it held a few pleasant surprises for me. 

The first two tracks should be surprises to no one.  The album begins with Geddy’s low synth – talk about “signaling” a change in the band’s direction – and continues with Neil Peart’s best lyric ever in “Subdivisions.”  “The Analog Kid” is among the band’s best ever, offering a brief return to a heavier guitar sound before heading back to the rich keyboard sound of “Chemistry,” a good track that struggles mightily to overcome its cheesy lyrics (credited to all three band members!  Not sure three heads were better than one in this case).  “Digital Man” is a great track that would sound right at home on Grace Under Pressure, with Alex’s crunchy chord-driven guitar part.  Here, the band employs keyboards just the right amount, not as a lead instrument but as a texture-adding element, even contributing a rhythmic pulse during the chorus, a technique used on the next track as well, “The Weapon.”  This song that starts strong before laboring about half-way through, especially during the instrumental section that offers dated keyboard patches and little forward momentum (a sign of what was to come on some of the songs from the band’s next release).

Just as the album begins to drag a bit, “New World Man” does for Signals what “Kid Gloves” does for Grace Under Pressure, breathing new life and energy into the mix, with a running time of less than four minutes (and serving as Rush's highest-charting single ever).  I’d never been a fan of “Losing It,” but today I really appreciated the verses that dance over the initial 5/8 rhythm.  Lovely stuff.  It’s also cool that Lifeson was willing to share soloing duties with Ben Mink’s electric violin, but like “The Weapon,” this song loses steam about half-way through.  The last track, “Countdown,” is a bit of time capsule, both musically and lyrically, and for me it was never one of Rush’s stronger tracks, as it meanders through too many different sections without offering enough of a hook.

When I saw my first Rush concert in October of 1982, they played every song from Signals except “Losing It.”   In recent years, “Analog Kid” has made a welcomed comeback, and “New World Man” and “Digital Man” have been played as well within the last decade or so.

All in all, a good recording, probably on par with Grace Under Pressure, though I think I favor the latter just a bit more.

Tomorrow, I’ll be listening to…drum roll, please…number 14, Roll the Bones, as Rush throws its hat into the world of rap.  Get ready…

20 Rush Albums in 20 Days: 2112

DAY FOURTEEN: Rush, 2112, running time 38:44, released April 1, 1976

Rush decided to go for broke on their fourth album, and the bet paid off.  Were it not for the success of 2112, the band would likely have a four-album history, little more than a 70s rock band footnote.  It’s hard to believe that the band members were only 22 and 23 years old at the time of the album’s release, and perhaps it’s the ideology and audacity of youth that allowed them to take the risk they did.

The first side of the album, the epic side-long “2112,” still holds up as well as it ever did.  What struck me was how simple it is harmonically and rhythmically.  Except for a few measures here and there, the entire piece is in 4/4 time, and each section offers simple chord sequences.  True, Rush still shows off its chops through its playing, but not yet in its composition (that would begin with the next album, A Farewell to Kings).  What distinguishes this effort from other side-long pieces is its relatable story with defining characters, its distinct sections and its variability in dynamics.  Unlike, say, Hemispheres, which mostly maintains a full-throttle approach, “2112” allows for room to breathe, from the spaces between notes in “Overture” to the over three minutes from 6:54 to 10:13 when the only instrument to be heard is Alex’s guitar.  This is unheard of in Rush’s repertoire in the last thirty years, where less is never deemed enough, opting instead for massive overdubs and unwelcome sound effects that clutter the landscape.  Here, we really get to hear the story and relate to the first-person narrator (something “Hemispheres” lacks for the most part) and take a breather between the priests’ outbursts.  Geddy Lee expertly alters his voice between the doomed narrator and the all-powerful Priests of Syrinx to help the listener along.  It all works so well, though as I’ve noted before, if I’m ever welcomed by a liberator who booms in a deep foreboding voice, “We have assumed control,” I’m going to keep a packed suitcase by the door just in case.

Side two doesn’t hold up as well.  “Passage to Bangkok” works beautifully with its infectious opening riff and hummable chorus, but for me “The Twilight Zone” is just so-so, and “Something for Nothing” sounds like it belongs on Caress of Steel with its screeching vocals.  “Lessons” and “Tears,” with lyrics by Lifeson and Lee respectively, have some nice parts to be sure and would have been welcome additions on the previous two albums, but here come off sounding a bit week compared to the rest of the album.

2112 presents a band that is still evolving, yet to reach its highest heights, but taking a huge step in the right direction. 

Tomorrow, I’ll be listening to…drum roll, please…number 9, Signals, the first Rush tour I ever witnessed. Does the follow-up to Moving Pictures match its predecessor?  Stay tuned.