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Rush is a Band

A blog devoted to RUSH:
Neil Peart, Geddy Lee & Alex Lifeson

Sat, Apr 20, 2024

Rush's Clockwork Angels makes the A.V. Club's 48 most anticipated entertainments of 2011 list

Mon, Jan 3, 2011@10:51AM | comments removed/disabled

[The waiting is still the hardest part: 48 of our most anticipated entertainments of 2011]

Rush's upcoming 19th full-length studio album Clockwork Angels made the A.V. Club's list of the 48 most anticipated entertainments of 2011 coming in at #26 (thanks squeaky wheel). Here's what they said:

26. Rush, Clockwork Angels (TBD, spring)

Kicking off with an ominous clank of machinery, �Caravan��the first single from Rush�s upcoming full-length, Clockwork Angels�telegraphs its intent: As drummer and chief lyricist Neil Peart explained, Clockwork will be a concept album with a strong steampunk motif. Rush couldn�t have picked a more ideal subgenre of science fiction to appropriate. The band has always spliced old-fashioned ideas like infectious melody and rock bombast with progressive arrangements, intellectual heft, and a highly advanced sense of futurism. Not to mention that, like steampunk, a potentially great new Rush album circa 2011 is a welcome, thrilling anachronism.

In an interview Alex Lifeson gave in late August with Allentown's The Morning Call, he had the following to say regarding the new album:

... "There is the epic song, 'Clockwork Angels,' which is really taking shape. It's a multi-parted piece, very dynamic," Lifeson says. "Then there's some stuff that's very melodic and on the softer side, on acoustic, with a strong melody. So there's great diversity there. ...

In a recent interview with Chile's Radio Futuro (loose English translation), Alex expands on these comments a bit when asked about the new material. Here's a rough English translation:

It's difficult to know until we are in the studio and record it, that's how it starts shaping up and acquires its own life because of the changes that are made while you record it. I think we need to write 2 or 3 more songs to be able to finish the composition of the new album. From the six we have written, there are a couple that are very long. One of them is Clockwork Angels, and it's very long in particular, with various parts and in an epic style of composition, maybe like the ones we did before, those long pieces, with a more extended format. But there are also various melodic pieces; one of them is in acoustic format, very friendly. It's a good blend of many things. Until we have everything ready and a more consummate idea of the album, it is difficult to know how it will be, but it will have a lot of energy for sure.

Geddy Lee stated in an interview with Brazil's TV UOL late last year that the album would not be ready for about a year, so it's anticipated that the release will be late this year or possibly early 2012. The band will instead be focusing on the second leg of the Time Machine Tour this Spring/Summer, and then hopefully finishing up the album this Fall.