The best Rush album ever made, according to Geddy Lee
Picking a favourite album is the musical equivalent of picking a favourite child. Although every album has its own set of highlights and might be home to the best tracks an artist has ever made, there will usually be a little bit of sentimental value that goes into making any piece of art from nothing.
While there are deeply personal connections between an artist and their work, Geddy Lee does hold a special place in his heart for one particular Rush album.
Having been one of the premier acts in prog rock since their breakthrough fourth record, 2112, the Canadian power trio had been known for experimenting on every album they ever made. Just when they had their sound down to a science on albums like Moving Pictures, their pivot into electronic music for most of the 1980s alienated fans while giving them more sonic avenues to experiment with. As the 1990s arrived, though, Rush found themselves transitioning into what would become the final phase of their career.
Operating with a grizzly tone on albums like Counterparts, the band went back to the foundation of what made them a power trio in the first place, letting everything blare out of three instruments at a time with Neil Peart’s most revealing lyrics on songs like ‘Nobody’s Hero’. As the band started to find their footing again, Peart was dealt a tragedy when he lost both his wife and child within months of each other.
It felt less like a reinvention and more like a recalibration. After years of layering synthesisers and chasing new textures, Rush seemed to rediscover the power of stripping things back, leaning on the chemistry that had carried them through their most celebrated work in the first place.
That return to basics also brought a renewed sense of focus. Rather than trying to outdo their past experiments, the band sounded more comfortable letting the songs breathe, which made everything that followed feel a bit more grounded, even as their ambitions continued to grow.
Feeling distraught, Peart rode across the country before finally soothing his soul on Vapor Trails, the Rush album many fans thought would never come out. After the band had started reinventing themselves yet again, their final outing would be their most ambitious project to date.
Since most of the band’s extended pieces usually involved heavy concepts that told a linear story across ten minutes, Clockwork Angels was their first attempt at a fully-fledged concept album. Set in a steampunk landscape, Peart wrote a short story about a man trying to find himself amid a world of anarchy, chaos, and advanced technology, which he would also turn into a novella of the same name.
While the band had far more successful singles to live up to, Lee would stand by this album as their finest hour, telling The Guardian, “I liked the concept of that record, and I do believe it’s our best work. It was a tough record to make lyrically, getting it down to something that Alex [Lifeson] and I could live with, that told enough of the story to satisfy Neil’s concept.”
Traditionally working as Peart’s lyrical editor, Lee would work around the different sets of lyrics that the drummer had assembled and fit them into whatever melody he and Lifeson were working on at the time. Although there are a handful of lyrics that struck a nerve with him, one song meant more to the singer than any other on the record.
Singling out ‘Headlong Flight’ as a particular highlight, Lee felt that the song was more autobiographical than Peart would admit, explaining, “There’s something about ‘Headlong Flight’ that’s almost about the history of my band to me. It’s autobiographical, in a way. Forty years into this career, and it goes by like that. The sentiment in that song is ‘I wish I could do it all again,’ and it’s true.”
While the album may not have been intended as the band’s swan song, it would end up being the showcase for their final major tour, with Peart passing away a few years after the band left the touring life. Clockwork Angels was never meant to be the last chapter of the Rush story, but it does put a fine point on the career of three of the most ingenious musicians in rock history.
