Rush - Snakes & Arrows
|
List Price: Our Price: $7.44 You Save: $6.54 (47%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $3.95 (click here) Category: Music CD See more new music releases 
|
|---|
Buy this Music CD at online store in your country
Canadian Music Store
Canadian Music Store
Free Music Notes for Snakes & Arrows
Free Music Review: Snakes And Arrows!
Hit: 5 Stars
This is easily one of my favorites (along with 2112, Moving Pictures, ETC)
Now maybe I don't know what i'm talking about but i'm glad they decide to always change their sound. Not every album can be 2112, nor will it be. I liked Vapor Trails very much (regardless if it's not a masterpiece) In fact the only rush album I can't stand happens to be Test For Echo Although i like Driven.
Far cry is a great song and a Good way to start this album out. Right away you know this album is different in many ways when far cry comes on. It just sounds fantasic to hear the begining of Far Cry. The lyrics are very smart and catchy. (I can get back on, I can get back on)...
I was going to put a breakdown of each song on the album. I think it's better for you to decide about the songs on the album. I will say this, Faithless is a GREAT song, ~if~ you listen to it. Unlike the reviewer that supposedly had a promo copy and quoted only part of that lyric that goes << "I don't have faith in Faith, I don't believe in belief, You can call me faithless, But I still cling to hope, I still believe in love, and that's faith enough for me." >> Faithless is my favorite song on this album (Far Cry and The Way The Wind Blows close second and third.) And it is actually a pretty strong song. When I listen to it I think of neil right away (and maybe it pertains to me too a bit).
I know most fans will see that I like Vapor Trails and say bad things outloud. But i'm a rush fan for life and I enjoy all of their music (except test for echos...) I throughly enjoy Snakes and Arrows and will be playing it at work, At home, In my dreams, On my way to work, shower and everywhere else I can sneak in time.
Before you judge this album listen to it. It can't hurt.
Like a flower in the desert, that blooms only in night, i will quietly resist :)
Free Music Review: A Short Cry from Moving Pictures
Hit: 5 Stars
Rush is a truly amazing group. Don't let the fact that they do some sequencing fool you! These are 3 of the best musicians in the world. And I can say that knowing that it is nearly universally accepted as true!
"Snakes & Arrows" shows us an older, wiser, and kinda pissed off Rush!
With just enough humor of themselves to let you know to take them seriously, but not too seriously. This is their best overall recording...(ah who am I kidding?) album since "Moving Pictures"
Gone is much of the 'restraint' they had shown on 'Counterparts' and they clearly don't care to write 'hits'. The focus of each of these pieces is the form of each individual song. Some people might think in parts they were too restrained because there was no guitar solo or the instrumentals (Malignant Narcissism) were too short....Again, they fooled you! Alex broke out with several different guitars and a couple rarely used instuments and he only has solos where the songs NEED them. Nothing is forced here!
Geddy's not screetching, but he doesn't have to...and there is not only fine melodies, but very interesting and unusual harmnonies. His bass playing is, well....as Geddy as ever!
Neil still gets off maybe even more than before, but he does it in short bursts; not all at once.
I should single out some other pieces;"Far Cry" is my personal favorite mostly because it rocks, but also because it sums up my life (one day I feel I'm on top of the world and the next it's closing in on me!)
"Armor & Sword" is probably the album's epic piece, There are 3 instrumentals which I found to be VERY intriguing; they had never done that before! Working them Angels, Spindrift, and Faithless are all very well constructed songs. Everything you ever loved about Rush is here....they just don't announce it. And after 35 years, they don't need to!
Free Music Review: Rush at their heaviest, production at it's weakest.
Hit: 5 Stars
First thing first, the music. Considering the artistic progression of the band, this release is a logical follow up to Vapor Trails. It's very heavy, complex, intensely layered, and lyrically valid and potent. It's slightly musically odd, as can be expected (and applauded) by many fans, but still retains many tasty hooks also indicative of the band's history. The music is five stars, easily, especially compared to the other crap floating around the music "business" but more impressively compared to the Rush back catalogue. Snakes and Arrows is absolutely one of my favorite records, and I think you'll enjoy it too. BUT, the production (contrary to what other reviewers thought) is BAD. You now why? because this record was produced by an alt rock producer, as if it was an alt rock album. If you ever listen to it with a pair of premium headphones ($250-$350) you know what I mean. My listening equipment allows me to hear very fine details of the recording that most of you simply will not notice. The soundastage (spatiality and instrument location) is absurdly miniscule. The whole album is highly compressed and tightly packed, the music just lacks that airy quality that prog rock needs. As a result, it can be a pain trying to listen through the heavy layering of some of these songs, some sounds are lost almost entirely in the recording. The frequencies trip all over each other, and interfere with the detail and transparency of the album, again thanks to the alt rock producer. Rush is a complex and highly orchestrated group, and this style of production is just a shame to them; it does no justice to the music and attempts to make them something they're not (a simplistic one note modern alt rock band.) Sadly Rush is using the same producer for their upcoming material, heres to hoping his meager skills have improved.Free Music Review: Welcome back boys
Hit: 5 Stars
The very fact that every new Rush album has us saying "What is this???" is the very reason Rush rules. These guys are always evolving. Period.
I've never bought a Rush album that I liked the first listen and I own them all. It took repeated listens to figure out where they were at mentally and musically when they recorded. After having listened to Snakes and Arrows numerous times, I'm feeling that old familiar thrill of "getting it". I love that feeling. I love hearing those bizarre melodies and odd time signatures popping spontaneously in my head and saying what song was that?
Admittedly, I lament a little sometimes when they veer off from a style I particularly love. I was less than ecstatic when "Roll the Bones" followed "Presto". But the album was still cool. And ultimately, it's not my music - it's theirs! Ridicule away, but Rush has never done anything but continue to make the music that they want to make which is why they are great. These are the same guys who gave us "Spirit of Radio" and "YYZ" after all.
I find it amazing that every Rush fan has a different favorite album. Of course "Moving Pictures" is classic and most lightweight Rush fans own that one, but you won't find that at the top of every fan's list. "Snakes & Arrows" is bound to be at the top of somebody's. It's good stuff.
I don't know why other people don't think so, but their seventies style is very much at work here. "Far Cry" and "Workin' Them Angels" have elements that could have been straight off of "2112" or "Fly By Night". Yet at the same time, they are 25+ years older with a whole anthology of music behind them so it's not *identical*.
It's something new altogether. And after 30+ years of Rush, that is exactly what I expected.
Keep rockin' boys!
Free Music Review: What's New Is Old Again
Hit: 5 Stars
A superb record.
There is something to be said for first impressions and I'm very impressed with my first listen to this disc. I haven't had that experience with Rush since Counterparts. When Vapor Trails came out it was more of a relief for what it signified about the band's continuation. My reaction to that music was, "Oh, it'll grow on me."
Snakes and Arrows has taken a cue from Counterparts in regard to dynamics, and while it does harken back to their late 70s output in spirit the playing and execution are right now. They are not riding on the past , but building on it.
One thing I like here is that there are three (count 'em, three!) instrumentals. Let's face it, real fans of first class musicians like displays of instrumental virtuosity. Don't you always crank YYZ? (The Allman Bros. ...Elizabeth Reed is an endlessly reinterpreted, consistently interesting good example.) Anyway, on this album, "Hope" really caused me to prick up my ears. If somebody had just played it for me without any introduction to it, I might have thought I was listening to some long lost Jimmy Page piece! Seems Alex was wearing his influence on his sleeve. And, you know, that's OK (great, even) from a band that is so fiercely original as Rush.
Some have complained that a few of the songs don't seem up to snuff. I don't know that I agree, but that is an issue symptomatic of the digital age. CDs can hold 80 minutes of music and artists (or the labels?) feel compelled to fill a good portion of that. The limits of the LP enforced greater selctivity of material. The fact of sides further complicated the matter. The perfection of a record like Permenent Waves has alot to do with that.
Snakes & Arrows is an excellent record for even the causal fan of Rush, assuming such a strange fish even exists.