‘Clockwork Angels’: The album Geddy Lee called Rush’s musical “sweet spot”
Getting too comfortable in a group is normally the first sign that something has gone wrong. As much as people like the idea of being at least a little bit easygoing at their job, it’s only a matter of time before someone starts to see a good track record as a bit of a holding pattern for some of their favourite acts. Staying the same has never been a part of Rush’s vocabulary, though, and for Geddy Lee, their farewell album Clockwork Angels was the first time they managed to balance every part of their sound.
Because, really, how the hell do you classify Rush in the span of rock and roll? There’s a broad definition of progressive rock, but does that really qualify when it comes to their 1980s work with synthesisers or when they transformed into a seasoned hard rock outfit in the 1990s with albums like Vapor Trails?
Beyond just the sound and length of their songs, there were also the lyrical themes that constantly changed throughout every facet of their career. Neil Peart was by far one of the most intellectual lyricists to ever put pen to paper, and while it was a mouthful trying to sing along with their tunes sometimes, no one can listen to a track like ‘Limelight’ or ‘Red Sector A’ and at least feel something.
These songs told intricate stories, so why the hell did it take them so long to actually write an entire story around one ambitious project? Yeah, for all of their massive mythical tales in their glory period on ‘2112’ and ‘Xanadu’, Clockwork Angels was somehow the only album that was a concept from skin to core, as Peart unpacked a story of a steampunk future and the misfit protagonist trying to find his place in the world.
Looking through the songs themselves, though, there’s a little something for every Rush fan. It will probably disappoint many fans stuck in 1985 to hear that the keyboards take a back seat, but in terms of the group firing on all cylinders, ‘Caravan’ and ‘Headlong Flight’ are absolute treats, especially when balanced out with softer material on ‘The Garden’.
While Lee has had many albums that didn’t sit well with him over time, he felt that Clockwork Angels was the best way to close the book on their history, saying, “A lot of the material on the Clockwork Angels album to me was sort of a sweet spot. A song like ‘The Garden’ is one of my favourite bass parts even though it’s not complicated.”
But Rush wasn’t just about being complicated anymore. They knew their status as one of the biggest giants in rock and saviours for music geeks the world over, so having them serve the song was a much better for them to go out than trying to whip together a scale-noodling extravaganza.
Rush had come a long way since being the bunch of kids that started in some Canadian garage, but now that Peart is no longer with us, Clockwork Angels is as close to a perfect finale as possible. It might not encapsulate everything that Rush was about under one roof, but after years of experimenting, it’s all the more inspiring to hear them still enjoying making records all the way up to the end.
