1/17/2024 0 Comments Rush clockwork angels![]() It is a future viewed from a totally unique perspective – steampunk, clockwork and while you are at it, add alchemy into the final mix as the alchemic elements are also crucial to the overall plot, their symbols appearing in the extraordinary artwork instead of the angels, who Peart says will remain mysterious figures for now. This is the overriding theme here with one man’s quest through this parallel reality controlled by the Watchmaker and Clockwork Angels, who ensure that no-one is ever free. As mentioned before, it creates a landscape first fashioned by writers such as Jules Verne and H G Wells, the Victorian novelists around whom the steampunk vision of mechanical flying machines (apart from Leonardo da Vinci before them) was envisaged. The first is this is their first fully-blown concept album and its myriad complexities will keep the fan base looking for clues for the rest of time. However, and most crucially, without Peart’s philosophical and sociological insights informing their lyrics, Rush would remain another two dimensional rock band, rather than the three - even four dimensions they now command through their music.Īs a result, Clockwork Angels is one of their finest albums to date. The little guy is now the Protagonist while the priests have morphed into the Watchmaker and the eponymous Clockwork Angels in a similar dystopian landscape. In 2112, it was the Starman against a solar federation led by the controlling Priests of the Temple of Syrinx (still a great line to shriek on top of your voice while driving along a fast stretch of road). ![]() But this is all part and parcel of Peart’s sweeping intellect and relentless thirst for knowledge, which 36 years after 2112 was first released continues the theme of the little guy taking on an empire. And as a result, practically every Rush fan can cite their own “golden age” of the band, many pointing the early heady days of 2112 and Peart’s dalliances with the works of Ayn Rand, founder of Objectivism, which resulted in the band being lambasted for giving such extreme philosophies much wider exposure. This is not bad going for two guys whose families were immigrants to Canada from Europe and a third who used to help out his father in his farm machinery business and read a lot: but more about that later.Ĭlockwork Angels is their 20th studio album in a musical career now stretching across 44 years and which has seen a continuous and systemic shift musically both in substance and style, due mainly as to whichever book drummer Neil Peart had on the go at the time. There are those who simply don’t “get” them and equally, there are those who do tend to elevate them to God-like status. However, the behemoth Rush has now become delights and confuses in equal measures. They dropped plenty of clues along the way as to what was about to be unleashed such as the huge arena stage set comprising steampunk contraptions which fired off rounds of pyrotechnic trickery at appropriate moments and the band playing two of the album’s new tracks, Caravan and BU2B with accompanying screen animations to stoke the imagination and whet the appetite. Much of this has had to do with the extensive touring the Holy Trinity (the nickname bestowed on them by their adoring fans) undertook last year to help stir up this feeding frenzy. Unless you have been on a desert island without an iPad for the past year and a half, it would have been difficult to escape the almost deafening levels of expectation surrounding the protracted lead-in time to Clockwork Angels’ release. Those who worship at the temple of Rush will be in raptures for those who remain agnostic, there may well be enough here to justify a leap of faith.Tracklist: Caravan (5:39), BU2B (5:10), Clockwork Angels (7:32), The Anarchist (6:52), Carnies (4:52), Halo Effect (3:14), Seven Cities Of Gold (6:32), The Wreckers (5:01), Headlong Flight (7:21), BU2B2 (1:27), Wish Them Well (5:26), The Garden (6:59) Alison Henderson's Review While it might not have the immediacy of their previous release, Snakes and Arrows, this is the three-piece's most solid and compelling set of songs in years. Indeed, the churning, chunky riff on BU2B wouldn't sound out of place on a Mastodon record. ![]() ![]() Yes, there is the complex musicality of prog at its most refined (Caravan, Headlong Flight) nestling beside emotive AOR anthems (The Wreckers), but – remarkably for what is the band's 19th studio album – Clockwork Angels never sounds dated. And for fans of 2112, their conceptual opus from 1976, Clockwork Angel's narrative about "an individual trying to follow his dreams in a dystopian future" will seem rather familiar – but this isn't a mere reboot. It may come as a surprise to casual observers that this is Rush's first concept album in over 30 years, given they might reasonably assume the Canadian prog overlords only release concept albums. ![]()
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