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Snakes & Arrows VS Vapor Trails Remixed


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  1. 1. Snakes & Arrows VS Vapor Trails Remixed

    • Snakes & Arrows
    • Vapor Trails Remixed


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VT is the much greater album. As has been said before, Far Cry and the instrumentals are the only things worth listening to on Snakes which is tied with Presto for the worst Rush has to offer.

 

Who wants to listen to Geddy plod through Peart's sermons backed by turgid muck? I'd rather listen to f***ing Coldplay.

Edited by laughedatbytime
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I prefer the original mix (but not the mastering) for VT.

 

I ate that album up when it came out. It hit me in just the right place but now I can barely listen to it and the remix did nothing to change my opinion of the album.

 

That being said I prefer Snakes. Only one track does not float my boat and a couple of others arent very uniformly strong but enjoyable. Ill say two songs I straight dislike, Faithless and Bravest Face.

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Ill say two songs I straight dislike, Faithless and Bravest Face.

 

I will agree with that. Both songs I really dislike too. I couldn't believe they trotted out Faithless on the TM Tour. Wasted opportunity to play something from VT instead! :16ton:

Edited by Wil1972
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I don’t remember the last time I listened to Snakes.

 

I’ve listened to the VT remix maybe just 3 or 4 times. Now it sits on the shelf gathering dust, mere centimeters away from his fellow dust collector, Snakes.

I listen to both quite often, at least in part.
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I don’t remember the last time I listened to Snakes.

 

I’ve listened to the VT remix maybe just 3 or 4 times. Now it sits on the shelf gathering dust, mere centimeters away from his fellow dust collector, Snakes.

I listen to both quite often, at least in part.

 

I prefer the original VT over the remix. I occasionally listen to the original. Spun that one sometime early last month.

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Made a VT playlist combining both versions,only OLV & Ghostrider from Remixed made it in

 

Although Ged's bass very much improved in the remix, Secret Touch just destroyed by all the other unnecessary changes

 

Bringing out the acoustic guitars in Earthshine interesting but end result suffers from loss in power

 

The engineering static, or whatever nasty stuff it is, at various parts of Peaceable Kingdom are simply appalling. I nearly asked for my money back

 

OLV definitely improved, if only by the end solo addition but i quite like the echoey drums too. The bass in remixed Ghost Rider just pure sex.

 

The original VT just blows S&A away for me, although S&A a great album overall which beats CA easily as an overall piece of work.

 

My combined VT playlist blows S&A away too obvs but not sure if the remixed VT on its own wins. Too much loss of power in parts and dont like a lot of the changes.

 

I mean, taking out that little lick of Al's in Ceiling Unlimited remixed was just daft and says it all really. I cant listen to that song as a result. When Alex Lifeson decides on something in track composition, you just leave it in and dont mess about.

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I'm curious about the 2 versions of VT. Was this the band's doing, or did another artist take it upon themselves to remix it?

 

The bands doing. It's official, and I am not even sure the original is even in print. Prefer the original but it might be time to revisit the remix!

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I really like S & A. Probably is the best album Rush did since Presto (IMO). Great songs, great lyrics, great mixing. One wonderful song after another. Working Them Angels, The Main Monkey Business, Far Cry, A & S, The Larger Bowl, The Way the Wind Blows, Hope, We Hold On. Even Faithless has grown on me. Their are 1 or 2 week songs near the end of the album but for a long album to have as many great songs as it does - wow.

 

The original VT is not to my taste. Not at all.

 

The remix? Hmm. Yes, I own it. Yes I do try to listen to it once in a while (last time was a couple of months back). It is much better than the original. Much, much better. So much so that it was about 3/4's of the way through the album before I developed a splitting headache. With the original I find it to be only a couple of songs in.

 

As for the material, Peaceable Kingdom, Ghost Rider & The Way it is are good / decent songs. The rest don't do anything for me. Some have spoken about the passion they hear in the album. I don't hear it. Even with the garage band style mixing being significantly improved, you still have the underlining lyrics which, frankly, I don't care for. Perhaps if Neil had made himself the lead singer for this album I might hear something since it was such a personal album. Boy, thats a strange idea. But he was not and Geddy just does not really project much that is striking to me even with the mixing improved - again, the lyrics in the first place don't do a lot for me.

 

S & A gets my vote for the reasons I have tried to explain above. Not even close. Great album vs. very poor album.

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I'm curious about the 2 versions of VT. Was this the band's doing, or did another artist take it upon themselves to remix it?

 

The bands doing. It's official, and I am not even sure the original is even in print. Prefer the original but it might be time to revisit the remix!

 

True the band (or some of them ) signed off on it, but David Bottrill was the guy who actually created it.from the original session tapes.

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Both are flawed albums. If there was a combination of VT's passion energy and lyrics combined with the less harsh better mixed sound of Snakes plus toss in the Rushian tradition of an instrumental it could've been something really special.

Instead there are two half-baked records. Three if you want to include CA but that's best left for a different thread

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I don't understand the seemingly universal appeal of the instrumentals from S&A - to me, they are as much a slog as the rest of the album. Totally tuneless wanks.

 

I'm not a huge fan of either of these records...but VT has some interesting song ideas on it - for me Ceiling Unlimited and Freeze are standouts - whereas, with the exception of Far Cry, S&A is just very same-y to me. Clearly, the remix of VT is a compromise between a more refined run at the available material and the original, horribly noisy but spirited performances. I find the the remix, at least, listenable - which is more than I can say for the original. Also, the decision to highlight more of Geddy's lower register vocal takes was quite welcome. But the sound of S&A is quite unenjoyable to me as well - super bright - so sonically, it's a bit of a toss up.

Edited by Timbale
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