SNAKES & ARROWS

Early 1977 I had my first musical encounter with the amazing sound of this Canadian three piece formation. A friend told met that "he had bought a double live album entitled All The World's A Stage by the excellent Canadian hardrock band Rush with a killer guitarplayer". During the first listening session I was blown away by Rush, especially the 'heavy progressive' sound of 2112, what a dynamic and sensational music. Half a year later I noticed a review about the new Rush LP entitled A Farewell To Kings in the known Dutch music magazine Muziekkrant Oor (written by Kees Baars who later became a personal friend of Geddy Lee). I read about lush synthesizers, twanging acoustic guitars, Moog Taurus bass pedals, exciting distorted guitar soli and awesome interplay, this couldn't go wrong! And indeed, I became a Rush die-hard who visited as an 18 year old proghead the Pinkpop Festival in 1979 during the Hemispheres tour and from then I visited all Rush concerts in Holland, including the mindblowing R30 tour last year (earplugs needed!). But I have to admit that I stopped buying Rush albums since Presto because Rush failed to keep my attention and I was not pleased with their more song oriented and guitar-based melodic rock. But after reading so many positive stories about this new Rush CD, I was so eager to listen to the sound on Snakes & Arrow that I decided to buy a Rush CD for the first time since 1988! Here is my musical analysis.

The first thing I noticed during my first listening session was the connection between the cover art, the climates in the music and the lyrics: the 'snake' and 'arrow' are archetypes for the elements 'fear' and 'agression', the lion's share of the lyrics tell about an ominous and cruel world in which we feel unsafe and unhappy and the dark and melancholical atmospheres in the songs match with the archetypes on the cover art. And I think Rush has evaluted their musical direction after the many negative reactions about the poor previous CD Vapor Trails: in my opinion the three musicians has done their best to make powerful and varied compositions, I cannot trace one weak song on this CD although a few songs are no more or less than tastefully arranged melodic rock songs (featuring a pleasant integration of instruments like the Mellotron, Greek bouzouki and mandolin). But quite a lot tracks sound captivating and dynamic like the opener Far Cry (fluent and propulsive with fiery, distorted guitar, an adventurous rhythm-section and some 'Hemispheres echoes'), Armor And Sword (great tension between the acoustic and electric parts and a biting guitar solo in the compelling climax) and the instrumentals The Main Monkey Business (exciting and alternating with awesome interplay), Hope (warm acoustic guitar as a tribute to Jimmy Page) and the (too) short Malignant Narcissus (sensational and propulsive, it reminds me a bit of YYZ).

After a few listening sessions I have concluded that Rush revenged themselves after the disappointing album Vapor Trails and even the Rush fans who are not pleased with the 'new Rush' (since Counterparts) will enjoy at least half of this CD. But don't expect a Hemispheres Part Two or something like that! From an objective point of view this album deserves four stars, personally I go for 3,5 stars.

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