CLOCKWORK ANGELS

In Rush's rockumentary, 'Beyond the lighted stage', Jack Black uses a colorful metaphor to describe any band's artistic longevity - the rocket-sauce bottle. He starts out by saying that some bands use it all up in one song but by contrast, from the outset of their recording and performing career, the harder Rush shook their bottle, the more sauce came out, that they're still shaking it and that there's plenty more sauce left. Clockwork Angels is dripping in rocket- sauce. At at time when most men are looking forward to slippers and a newspaper, Rush seem to be finding frightening new reserves of energy and inspiration. In all its gorgeous heavy splendour, CA reminds us that Rush should never be underestimated and that they will always find ways to surprise us. Once again Neil provides us with sharp observations on everything ranging from anger born of an unsatisfied sense of entitlement to obsession to the 'measure of a life'; powerful and elevated themes that demand deeper consideration and more honest refelection in all of us. In the engine room, we hear Rush cranking the rocket- sauce machine playing with an intensity that we should in all seriousnous be expecting from musicians 30 years younger than them. The songs are brilliant and the album has a wonderful cohesiveness to it. Now....should this album be listed in the Archives? No...it's not progressive by any definition and although it hints at progressivity from time to time, that's not sufficient to get it across the line. I love Rush, always have and still do BUT they are no longer a progressive outfit. It's long past time to stop listing their albums here.