RUSH — Clockwork Angels (review)

Album · 2012 · Hard Rock

3.5/5 · 2013-02-08
Phonebook Eater

7/10

Some Talent Never Dies.

“Clockwork Angels” is the nineteenth album by legendary Canadian act Rush, one of the greater Progressive Rock/Hard Rock bands of the late seventies to early eighties. Albums such as “Permanent Waves”, “A Farewell To Kings”, “Hemispheres”, and especially “Moving Pictures” have sculpted the history of the genre, in one way or the other. The band continued making music during the 80’s, 90’s, and 00’s, and never made a terrible album since, although they became more and more generic with time passing, as they tended to be heavily influenced by the current music styles of the time. The last album before “Clockwork”, 2006’s “Snakes and Arrows”, was a pretty successful attempt to gain a new sound of their own, with a lot of Hard Rock influences. This 2012 album pretty much takes off where the previous album did.

“Clockwork Angels” is quite the simple, straightforward album, no fillers, no killers. It’s an album composed of Songs with capital S, meaning that that attention for album flow that was felt in their old classics is pretty much gone, in favor of a greater focus on songwriting skills. Of course, the songs don’t go anywhere near the levels of the classics, but they still accomplish to be catchy and fun.

Here we have a band that has arrived to a point where they don’t care anymore that much to craft an album that could be a potential game-changer; they just want to have fun, and you can tell by listening to “Clockwork Angels”, this is just something they did out of their personal need, to get some music out of their system, no matter what the actual results would be. But since we are talking about some of the most talented musicians alive, this results is very satisfying nevertheless.

Rush manage to write quite the catchy tunes on this album, like the opener “Caravan”, the title track, “The Wreckers”, or the more ballad tunes like the beautiful closer “The Garden” or “Halo Effect”. The rest of the songs are pleasant, and miraculously, not even one goes close to being a bad song. Sometimes, simplicity is the way to go.

more than 2 years ago
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MAVIIIVAM wrote:

more than 2 years ago

Part 2-
Maybe Terry Brown needs to bring-in his "fresh" approach of today, yet understanding the direction that songs should go for Rush.
Its hard to say all this being a dedicated Rush fan all these years, and that it made 25 in my Top 30 is really really odd :(. It has a few powerful songs, but its not the album I hoped for.
Though I will see them in Concert whenever they are in-town for sure to take it all in, no doubt!

Okay Rush fanatics, beat me up :(.

MAVIIIVAM wrote:

more than 2 years ago

Part 1-
I think you hit the nail on the head about this one . . .
Maybe its just that - "Having Fun" and getting these tracks out there and heard. Thats how I should take it. I have been a fan since Moving Pictures, then went backwards and then forward with "Signals" and truly loved EVERY album (well, the least; "Roll the Bones" but it has VERY strong songs I like :).
But "Snakes and Arrows" didnt stick with me (3 songs I love), "Vapor Trails" had to grow on me-but now I LOVE it. I've tried to love "Clockwork", especially because I have BEGGED for a Concept "Album" for a long time. But I miss Alex's "Reverb/Chorus" (Give the man his reverb! :p) and when they are groovin' with a Dark Sound - it gets ruined by a Happy one! Major vs Minor chords, and Geddy and the "Harmonies", he doesnt need them . . .