![]() ![]() ![]() The same question that has been posed by struggling religious believers for millennia repeats itself here: what point is there in living, if all one has done and ever will do is predetermined? This potentially crushing conflict is captured by the heavier first half of the record, the driving riffs of “BU2B” and “Carnies” being two key examples. This tumult, along with a long voyage overseas that culminated in a ferocious storm on the return home, are the impetus for the collapse of faith the protagonist comes to on Clockwork Angel’s shortest work, the string-backed “BU2B2”: Throughout the story, a recurring character called “The Pedlar” stops by to ask the central question underlying the protagonist’s quest: “What do you lack?” To this, the Anarchist responds: “Vengeance.” The domineering force of fate is met by the unquenchable thirst of boundless rage, reaching its climax during a nearly devastating encounter at a carnival on “Carnies”. This is a society rife with conflict, here embodied by the titular contrarian of “The Anarchist”. As the unnamed protagonist journeys from his humble village to Crown City in search for greater meaning, he finds himself crushed under the weight of society’s prolonged quest for understanding divinity. The character of the Watchmaker, a reference to Christian apologist William Paley’s teleological argument for the existence of God, is the site of Peart’s biggest lyrical exploration here, namely the battle between human will and determinism. The setting is a futuristic, steampunk-esque world, the center of which is the majestic Crown City, where the Watchmaker presides over his creation. The story of Clockwork Angels centers around an existential crisis of sorts. Conceptually, however, it’s the strongest progressive rock concept album since Dream Theater’s Scenes from a Memory. Clockwork Angels, while musically strong, isn’t anything revelatory given the high bar Rush set for themselves in the prog pantheon. The proliferation of prog bands worldwide has made concept records a dime a dozen, but these old dogs have breathed fresh air into this well-worn format. But while Hemispheres this isn’t, it’s an engrossing story Peart’s lyrics are the best they’ve been in a long time. They’re no stranger to this format, having mastered it many times before. For this twentieth LP, the trio has opted for the timeless prog convention: the concept album. Even though the group may have had a post-gold-era career far better than Lynyrd Skynyrd, they get the calls for “Free Bird” at shows just the same.īut with Clockwork Angels, Rush have escaped these trappings of late-career complacency. As a result, when I heard about this new album, I expected my reaction to be the same as it was for the majority of Rush’s recent work: I’d give it a listen, be impressed by a couple of tracks or so, but ultimately go back to the classics. We may not expect another 2112, but the mind-blowing virtuosity of Lifeson, Lee, and Peart never ceases to impress, and for many as long as the trio kept doing what it did best, there’d be no complaints. Given the heavy adoration from their fans and the prog community as a whole, no matter what they put out people would continue listening. One thing it did, however, was signify an important fact of this aging band’s career. Their last studio outing, 2007’s Snakes & Arrows, was good but not great. They’ve chugged along admirably, never being forgettable nor enthralling. They could throw out the playbook and do something crazy, but that risks alienating longtime fans as well as ignoring what made them successful in the first place.įortunately, Rush have stuck to the fundamentals for the majority of its later recordings. After peaking as marvelously as these Canadians did, where can they go? They could try to improve on their central formula, but that risks repetition. The high importance Rush has had for for this genre, while placing the group in a position of high regard, has also cast a dark shadow over its post-eighties releases. That song’s subtitle, “An Exercise in Self-Indulgence,” has for better or worse become the MO of many prog rock bands. And while the complex, suite-structured tracks Rush are famous for have been done by earlier greats like Pink Floyd and King Crimson, classic cuts like “La Villa Strangiato” remain integral to prog’s history. Dream Theater’s popularity would be severely diminished if the proficiency of Neil Peart’s drumming hadn’t been the progenitor of Mike Portnoy’s. As talented as Rush may be, it’s hard to climb back up the pinnacles that have come to form the landscape from which modern progressive rock’s biggest outfits have sprung. I think it’d be uncontroversial to suggest that we’ll never see the likes of 2112, Moving Pictures, or Hemispheres ever again. ![]()
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