3 keepers
keeper avg .272
Following their previous album Snakes and Arrows by five years, Rush's final album is as creative and conceptually dense work as one would hope. Though some songs definitely work better than others it's clear none of the triumvirate is going through the motions, and at any given moment any one of them could be delivering some of their career's best work. All that being said the album took a while to grow on me, and most of the first half never did. It doesn't help that "Caravan," the lead-off single, is a jumbled mess of meathead "Stick It Out"-ish riffs and tuneless melodies that slip by un-remembered however effortlessly the band's three virtuosos navigate the track's baffling time signature changes. Though most victims of organized religion get over raging about it in their 20s here's Peart at 60 serving up the tiresome "BU2B" ("brought up to believe"), a bitter, head-banging repeat of more self-affirming "Freewill," however clever the chorus-ending pun "While our loving Watchmaker Loves us all to death." Though the trio, and Peart especially, plays the schizophrenic title song ferociously, in the end it's just two very different ideas alternated CVCVC and jammed together. It's not the best beginning of an album; however, Lerxt does provide a couple amazing solos, a wacko "Tom Sawyer" assault in "Caravan" and a more expressive "Freewill" passage in "Clockwork Angels."
Almost 20 years after the trend rode off into the sunset, "Carnies" is the best "grunge rock" Rush has ever done, and the chorus is one of Geddy Lee's best melodies, but it falls flat otherwise. Elsewhere the middle of the album is especially forgettable, consisting of "Halo Effect" ("what did I see fool that I was?") and "The Wreckers" ("all I know is you have to be wary"), two power ballads bogged down with a hammily sawing rock-n-roll string section, and a generic rocker "The Anarchist" ("the missing part of me"), which is similar to "Secret Touch."
"Seven Cities Of Gold"**** (finally) is a rocker whose power matches the band's genre-defining chops, and is at least at the level of great Rush-post-2000 tracks like "Far Cry" and "Earthshine"; Dirk (Lee) especially nailed it, singing the hell out of a melody he was born to crush and proving at 59 he was still at the top of his game. "Headlong Flight"**** hauls ass from the first riff and Sweet Jeebus, Dirk is all over that fretboard. Actually, everybody gets a chance to shine, and the bonus 30-seconds of "By-Tor And The Snow Dog"-level craziness at the five minute mark is one band's pinnacle moments.
"Wish Them Well" is a rather obvious song about intolerance, but boy is it prescient. Apparently Peart thought people were acting pretty shitty in 2012 - he could not have been any more impressed with the clusterf--k we're in now (2020). The album ends with "The Garden"****, a modest ballad with distinctive Rush touches, specifically the two evocative bridges; the first is a subtle bass melody by Lee, the second an atmospheric piano break that Lerxt concludes with a straightforward but gorgeous solo. Peart's poignant message about the fragility of humanity's most important gifts, love and respect, is as touching farewell as we could ask for from prog-rock's poet laureate. RIP N.E.P. 1952-2020.
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