Clockwork Angels - The Book

[ThomasKDye]

It's funny, I'm always surprised when people DON'T like Clockwork Angels, the album.

Well, okay. I'll keep surprising you.

It's loud and it's noisy, it's messily produced, all but five songs are uninteresting, the guitars just blare at you, Geddy's vocals are clearly not what they used to be, and for the first time I don't care what the lyrics are because it's all just a musical mess. I've listened to it four times to try to "get" it but I couldn't.

"Caravan," "BU2B," "Seven Cities of Gold," "Wish Them Well" and "The Garden" are OK. But just OK. In the right mood I can groove on "Caravan." Honestly, this is pretty much on the same level as Vapor Trails for me; they're trying hard to be badass and rock out but the songwriting isn't there anymore. And like VT, there's a few redeeming songs but nothing that makes the album great.

I'm actually disappointed, though, that there is no palpably interesting concept linking it all. I always imagined that there was some incredible story going on inside Geddy's wailing and difficult-to-discern vocals, but I guess not. As it is, these last three albums they did have been disappointing, and as much as I love Rush, as far as I'm concerned, their last really killer album was Counterparts.

[JKL2000]

I've not read it either. (Though I have various versions of it (No graphic novels or comics or any of that crap.))

No interest. I'm not a Kevin J. Anderson fan and I don't want to ruin my interpretations of the of the album by reading the book.

Why is it then that you have various versions of the book?

[the ferret]

Book felt like a first draft to me. Plenty of potential but pretty unsatisfying as it stands.

[Garden Dreamer]

Not interested in the book, but I did give CA a spin recently after not hearing it for awhile. And wow, it IS loud and noisy with crappy production. And I had to cringe at some of the vocals; Geddy IS singing in this sort of throat-falsetto (but at least there is very little of the "whimpering puppy" vocals of S&A). The pluses for me are the fiery playing and the more interesting arrangements with some classic old-school Rush breakdowns in "Caravan" and "Headlong Flight". Both of these are my favorites from the album. The prog is dialed up more than S&A and Alex really put a lot of effort into coming up with some guitar textures he's never used before. That shrill repeating "Wish....them...well" vocal in that song is real annoying, sounds so ProTools like it was recorded once and punched in. I got choked up with "The Garden" partly because I recognized it as Rush wishing us all farewell and partly because I related it to my own life. I still rate it as a pretty good album, the best since Power Windows, but I can only wonder how much better it might sound if written and recorded in the 70's with Terry Brown at the helm...

[ytserush]

Why is it then that you have various versions of the book?

It's only 4 (2 of them are audio but my son absconded with 1 of each). A small percentage of what eventually became available.


As a Rush fan, I like Neil's sketch of the world that was created (Just not Kevin J. Anderson's involvement with it) (Don't have any of the graphic novels/comics or sequels associated with it either though.)



I'd have been all in on the Astonishing too if it weren't for the lyrics. Love that concept too and the music.

I'd imagine that book is better than the album, but I just can't go as far as I would have due to the album lyrics.