Rush: "Snakes and Arrows" discussion (1 Viewer)

[ElevSkyMovie]

 

[Brian Perry]

Me too...I thought it actually had a Tom Sawyer kind of feel.

 

[nickGreenwood]

i uh heard the album... *whistles innocently*

Personally I love it, some nice solo's from Alex in there, the acoustic track "Hope" is beautiful. I can't wait for Tuesday, I'm so there to buy it.

Two great "progressive" rock albums from two of my favorite bands right now, Porcupine Tree and Rush and so close to each other, sigh, good two weeks to be a music fan!

 

[TheLongshot]

Not to mention that Alex Lifeson plays on both.

Jason

 

[ScottH]

Yeah, while it's great to have two great bands with new releases so close together, I actually find myself in a dilemma as to which one to listen to. I decided since Rush isn't officially "out" yet, I'm taking it easy on that one and spending my time with Porcupine Tree this week. I have listened to 'Snakes & Arrows' a couple of times and a few tracks have grabbed me. Particularly 'Faithless' and 'Spindrift' (the latter of which I predicted based on the fact that I didn't care for the sample on the Rush website).

 

[Nathan Eddy]

God, Far Cry is REALLY starting to grow on me. I take back everything I ever said about it. The chorus is amazing. Geddy's vocal melody is so powerful. I'm starting to have the same euphoric response to it that I got from Secret Touch. This is celebratory music--music that celebrates being alive. I love Rush.

 

[Brian L]

$12 in the Best Buy flyer...Tuesday at lunch time, I am SO there!

New Rush music.....its a beautiful thing.

Brian

 

[Brett_B]

$10 in the Circuit City flyer

 

[Aaron Silverman]

Best Buy lists the LE at $22.99, Amazon at $21.59, and Circuit City not at all.

Interestingly, both BB and Amazon are listing it as a DVD-A.

 

[Brian L]

What...No one has any reports????? Come on now!

OK, I will start. I am only 6 songs onto it, and thus far its brilliant. No defintive comments on sonics yet, as I am listenning on the PC, but I am really liking the music.

I had not cheated and listenned to the MP3's out there, so this is my first listen to everything but Far Cry. My favorite so far...The Main Money Business.

Thus far there are some nice instances of what Jimmy Page referred to as "Light and Shade".

I can't wait to hear this in its entirety on the big rig.

Brian

 

[JonZ]

Im gonna have to pick this. I just went to rush.com and like the song (Far Cry?)playing on the main page.

I for one am glad to the synth heavy Rush days finally gone.

 

[Aaron Silverman]

Um. . .the "synth-heavy" Rush days have been gone for almost 20 years!

 

[Nathan Eddy]

I've been listening to it all day (I work from home). In a word: outstanding.

In a few paragraphs . . . well, it's not flawless. Let me go ahead and get my gripes out of the way. Geddy's singing. Not his voice, his singing, bugs me at points. I can see how people complain about the layered vocals. Sure, they are beautiful when done right. The chorus to Workin' them Angels is nice. And elsewhere they have equal power. But there's too much. Geddy's voice is unique enough that sometimes less is more. My biggest gripe with the vocals is how he dangles the end of each line with a half-dozen notes per syllable. He tortures the last word in many, many lines of way too many stanzas. And, he repeats too many stanzas near the end when I'd rather just hear solos, or "outros."

Okay, that's about it for the negative. The songwriting, both lyrics and music, are fantastic. You can tell they really put some effort into making these songs unique. There's bluesey stuff, acoustic stuff, melodic stuff, heavy stuff, etc. Some songs do have parts that sound a little like Vapor Trails (not that this is a bad thing), but there's much more that's different.

Spindrift was a real surprise, given how doubtful I was over the clip we got early. It's a very powerful, eerie, haunting song.

Bravest Face made me cry. I'm serious. Real tears streaming down my face. The poignant lyrics, combined with Geddy's whimsical and yet mourning vocal melody, was amazing. He's singing about how many religious types (and even some "rational" types) like to paint an artifically pleasing picture of the world. And while that may be a pretty picture, it ignores the "unattractive truth" (to quote Subdivisions ). It's not really a song of condemnation, but rather wry grief. And yet, despite what sucks about the world, there's no magical place to escape it. No fairy land. So what are you going to do? Stand up and put on your Bravest Face. Beautiful. It's like Camus's call for us to revolt against our own absurdity, an existential bravery. Authenticity.

Main Monkey Business is amazing. Everything you've heard about it is true. It's not YYZ, not as strictly structured into easily recognizable parts. It's more "linear." But, god, do they jam!

I've already talked about how beautiful Hope is, just from the 30 second clip. The rest is even better. Gorgeous.

Far Cry is even more powerful in it's hi-fidelity fullness. Wow, I love that song.

The only song that wasn't instantly accessible or likeable was Faithless. I love the lyrics and the message, but the music was a little bland to me.

The sound is orders of magnitude better than Vapor Trails. I won't say more than that because most of my listening was done through headphones while I worked on the computer. Once I listen at "proper" levels though my stereo, I'll have more to say about that.

 

[DavidJ]

I for one wouldn't mind if they sprinkled some synth back in to their music. I understand wanting to break from a sound and return to roots, but to me their sound has become stagnant--not that I won't by this album. Of course, Hold Your Fire is one of my favorite Rush albums. I also really liked Test for Echo the first of their "synths-are-now-evil-because-Alex-said-so" albums so I like both styles.

 

[Aaron Silverman]

I thought that was Presto!

 

[Paul.S]

Wow Nathan. (Except for that stuff about's Ged's singing), thank you for sharing your comments, esp re "Bravest Face."

 

[Nathan A]

I dig the instrumentals, although the brevity of Malignant Narcissism is a bit disappointing (2:16).

After a very quick run-through, my favorite lyrics are from The Larger Bowl.

And for anyone who's wondering what a pantoum is (see The Larger Bowl), it's where the 2nd and 4th lines are repeated as the 1st and 3rd lines of the next verse. I did not know that before. Thanks, Neil!

 

[TheLongshot]

I don't remember any synths on Counterparts. I thought that was the first one when they decided to strip down their sound.

Anyways, my best friend would like to see a return to the synth era, since that's the stuff he grew up with and likes the best. Personally, any Rush is good Rush.

Jason

 

[DavidJ]

I'll pretty much second that.

 

[Nathan Eddy]

The Larger Bowl does indeed have some clever lyrical patterns. And beyond the pattern, the content is also very powerful. The last line sung (not written), ". . . such a lot of pain on the earth," is perhaps one of the main points of this album. I hear that phrase silently echoed in all the other songs. There's an aweful lot of pain here on this rock supposedly created by an omnipotent God. I don't want to turn this into a religious or philosophical debate--I'm just commenting on the lyrics and the emotional impact of this album. Whether you be a deist, theist, atheist, or agnostic . . . you've got to hear the emotion pouring out of these three guys. They mourn the pain on the earth, rather than look for someone to blame for it. It's just a raw, undeniable fact for them, not a piece in a mythological puzzle. And its reality deserves more than our bickering about who is to blame. No matter which side of the theological divide we find ourselves on, surely we can all agree that suffering in the world sucks. It is worth more than our arguments. It is at least worth a song--or 13.

I think Neil has earned the right to write about pain, regardless of what anyone thinks of his beliefs. (Do a search about him losing his wife and only child, if you're not familiar.)