Re: Rush: "Snakes and Arrows" discussion
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.
