Rush: "Snakes and Arrows" discussion - Page 5

Nathan Eddy · 05-02-2007, 12:33 AM

"Personally, any Rush is good Rush." I second that! I love the synth period, too. Especially Mission, and lots of stuff from Grace Under Pressure.

Why isn't Xanadu considered a synth song? Or Tom Sawyer? There's more synthn in those two songs from the 70's and 1980 than anything in the last decade +.

Granted, Hold Your Fire was definitely a high point for the synths. But even Rush recognized that. Hence, Presto.

I'm really hearing lots of Counterparts in S&A, and Vapor Trails, after a recent listen.

Gwon Chang · 05-02-2007, 03:23 AM

I am loving this CD, but it appears there's some clipping in Main Monkey Business? Listen to the left channel when the guitar is doing the da-da-da dadada da-da-da dadada thing towards the end, right before Neil does his cymbal choke thing.

Anyway, here's a few things I blogged about tonight:

# Geddy plays his bass w/o doing his flamenco thing. He seemed to pick that up during the Counterparts era, but if you watch the video from "Limelight" in the early '80s, you see him doing the flicking thing with his picking finger. It's cool in some songs, but he overused it in recent recordings. Call me a purist, but why use 16th notes when 8th notes will suffice?

# No insane bass tracking. Once again, on VT, Geddy tracked 2 or 3 different basslines on some songs. Does Rush have 3 bassists? No. So why have 3 tracks? Self-production, that's why. No outside voice to tell him, "Uh, HELL no." On the S&A songs, Rush is 99% bass, drums and guitar, as they should be. (Though there is a bit much vocal tracking and harmonies)

What else is cool for me is that there are no songs I dislike (The Stars Look Down from Vapor Trails anyone? Ugh)

Nathan Eddy · 05-02-2007, 09:57 AM

I actually like The Stars Look Down. To be honest, I don't really like Ghost Rider on VT--though I love it on the Rio DVD. I know this is a popular song, but I just don't like the studio version.

Extra voices bug me a lot more than extra basses. True, it's impossible to reproduce live without triggering pre-recorded stuff, but they do that all the time in concert with sythn parts, so what's the difference?

Oh, and there's plenty of overdubbed guitars on S&A. Maybe not as much as VT, but surely more than 1%. What's cool is that a lot of it is acoustic layered beneath the electric. That seems to give it more "space" than simply another electric.

David Deeb · 05-02-2007, 10:26 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nathan Eddy

after listening a few more times, "Hope" is just beautiful. Wow. Haunting acoustic work by Alex.

Is "Hope" really even a Rush song?

The credits read "Hope" is "composed and performed by Lerxst Lifeson all by his own self".

Is this Alex's son?

Great CD.

Gwon Chang · 05-02-2007, 10:38 AM

Lerxst is Alex's nickname. Neil is Pratt and Geddy is Dirk.

ElevSkyMovie · 05-02-2007, 11:36 AM

The production is very good. I'm glad Nick asked Alex to go back to some of his older amps. I don't like the sound of the amps he was using, they sounded too thick and muddy, cutting into Geddy's space. The album is compressed, but less so than the last two. Feedback, even though not as bad as Vapor Trails, still is hard for me to listen to because it is so loud. So far I'm really happy. Can't wait for my dvd-audio to arrive so I can watch the in studio stuff. Being an audio engineer, I like to look at that kind of stuff.

JonZ · 05-02-2007, 11:54 AM

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

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

Vapor Trails was the first Rush record Id heard prob since I think Grace Under Pressure

Brett_B · 05-02-2007, 12:10 PM

Quote:

but it appears there's some clipping in Main Monkey Business? Listen to the left channel when the guitar is doing the da-da-da dadada da-da-da dadada thing towards the end, right before Neil does his cymbal choke thing.

I heard that as well (actually, a few times, but most notably towards the very end).

I have that song on "repeat" mode. I can't get enough of that instrumental.

ScottH · 05-02-2007, 09:40 PM

Here's an interesting review on Snakes & Arrows from IGN. The reviewer, who seems to be a credible Rush fan, seems to like the music a lot, but is bothered by the sometimes extremely negative lyrics.

http://music.ign.com/articles/784/784829p1.html

DavidJ · 05-02-2007, 11:49 PM

Thanks for posting that. It is an interesting read. I am more than a little uneasy about the tone of some of the lyrics.

Nathan Eddy · 05-03-2007, 12:06 AM

DavidJ, please tell us more about your feelings on the lyrics. I can imagine being a Christian Rush fan, for instance, and being bothered by the lyrics. But please don't feel like you can't speak your mind on this issue if that's the case (and if it's not the case, then just ignore my post

).

I think the lyrics mourn how men have perverted religion, rather than criticize religion for the hell of it.

And if Neil doesn't have faith, so what? It shouldn't have any effect on your faith.

As to the "negative" criticism . . . I don't see this as negative at all. Was the "unattractive truth" from Subdivisions negative? There's a difference between authentically facing something that sucks and being negative. Neil is not whining. He is not complaining. He is chronicling the human condition, as he sees it. This album is remorseful and euphoric at the same time. It is paradoxical. But if you try to view it through a filter of your own beliefs--rather than try to understand Neil's perspective--I can see how you might only get one side of that paradox. That doesn't mean your view is wrong. It just means that Neil might disagree with you. And if music doesn't challenge our certitude and cause us to think about the deepest aspects of our lives, then it's just Britney Spears.