On The Road Again: Rush "Snakes & Arrows"

sábado, 1 de julio de 2017

Rush "Snakes & Arrows"

Snakes & Arrows is the eighteenth studio album, by the Canadian rock band Rush. Released on May 1, 2007, it was their first studio outing since 2004's Feedback, and their last studio album officially with Atlantic Records (at least in the US, where they changed distributors to Roadrunner Records as of August 31, 2011). The album was recorded in five weeks between November and December 2006 at Allaire Studios in New York’s Catskill Mountains and mixed and mastered at Ocean Way Studios in Los Angeles, California.

Snakes & Arrows was released on CD on May 1, 2007, as a double LP album on June 19 (limited to 5,000 copies), as well as being the first album released on the new MVI (Music Video Interactive) format (limited to 25,000 copies) on June 26. Snakes & Arrows debuted at #3 on the The Billboard 200 chart where it remained for 14 weeks. It was certified gold in Canada in September 2007. The track "Malignant Narcissism" was nominated for a Grammy Award under the category Best Rock Instrumental Performance. The album was named as one of Classic Rock‘s 10 essential progressive rock albums of the decade. It was reissued and remastered in 2013 as a part of the box set The Studio Albums 1989–2007.

According to drummer and lyricist Neil Peart, inspiration for the title of the album was conceived after considerable research from several sources; the 2000-year-old Buddhist game called "Leela, the Game of Self-Knowledge", the related children's game Snakes and Ladders (also known as Chutes and Ladders), and Hamlet's quote "slings and arrows." This information helped convince bassist Geddy Lee and guitarist Alex Lifeson to adopt the original painting of the age old game board as the cover for the new album.

On March 12, 2007, the band unveiled a new website at the official Rush website, primarily to promote the album. The first single from the album, "Far Cry", was posted as on-demand streaming audio on this site at that time. The band also announced that the single was being released to North American radio stations. On May 8, 2007, the band announced the release of a video for "Far Cry," and on June 1, 2007, "Spindrift" was released to radio stations as the album's official second single. The third single for the album, "The Larger Bowl (A Pantoum)" was released June 25 to North American radio where it positioned within the top 30 of the Mainstream Rock and Media Base Mainstream charts. In promotion of Snakes & Arrows, Rush kicked off their planned intercontinental tour on June 13, 2007, in Atlanta, Georgia, which ran through October and covered most of North America and Europe. The 2008 leg of the tour started on April 11, 2008, in San Juan, Puerto Rico at José Miguel Agrelot Coliseum and came to a close July 24, 2008, in Noblesville, Indiana.

The album debuted at number three on the U.S. Billboard 200, selling about 93,000 copies in its first week. These figures only reflect sales of the CD version of the album, and do not include the MVI or LP versions.

Peart, the band's primary lyricist, has stated the lyrical theme of the album is based on his personal reflections on faith, inspired by his motorcycle journeys through North America. Many of the experiences mentioned in the lyrics of Snakes & Arrows evolved from Peart's memoirs from his most recent book: Roadshow: Landscape With Drums, A Concert Tour By Motorcycle.

According to Alex Lifeson, musical themes for the album were written and developed using acoustic guitars to work out the major parts. These parts were ultimately recorded using acoustic or electric guitars, or other instruments. Lifeson found that writing the songs on acoustic guitars provided a certain purity, assisting him in conceiving the instrumental parts. Both he and Lee used this as an alternative to more traditional methods of song development, which saw the use of amplified electric guitars and the assistance of electronic instruments.[citation needed] David Gilmour is credited in the liner notes because he inspired Lifeson to write songs mostly on acoustic guitar. According to an interview from the September 2007 issue of Guitar Player, Lifeson mentioned meeting Gilmour at a concert at Toronto's Massey Hall during Gilmour's "On an Island" tour.

According to Raskulinecz, the album has a similar sound to Rush's albums of the late 1970s, such as 2112, A Farewell to Kings, and Hemispheres.

Track listing

All lyrics are written by Neil Peart; all music is composed by Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson, except "Hope" by Lifeson.