jnoble

Given the story line on this that needed each song to carry it forward, an instrumental would've sounded out of place.

QUOTE (Jaminbenb @ Jul 20 2012, 04:32 PM) I can honestly do without Tom Sawyer....Never was a HUGE fan of it... My only favorite version of TS is the Exit Stage Left one (video and CD). The studio one is also good but I've heard it so many times it's lost all meaning.

I wish they'd ditch YYZ and resurrect Where's My Thing. That was AWESOME live, espeically with the extended intro.

QUOTE (trenken @ Jul 14 2012, 06:42 PM) Appetite's production is pretty awesome. That album holds together cranked up. It has power and it's clean. To me it's very similar to Power Windows in that way. These days, not sure what's going on but it's not just Rush. Metallica's recent album is bricked to all hell. I guess it's just the desire to push it as far as they can to have a heavy sound, but the bottom line is it just ends up sounding muddy. With CA at least I dont hear a lot of that annoying clipping that VT had, but its still really lacking dynamics. That's exactly it. Modern recording/production of rock albums is just not good anymore. For example I recently bought The Black Keys 'El Camino' album and it's easily the most compressed album I've ever heard. The songs are pretty good, but holy hell, every one of them is SQUEEZED all to hell. The guitars and vocals and drum tracks are all smashed together on top of each other with no sound separation whatsoever. It's a shame because outside of that, it's pretty good music.

QUOTE (spock @ Jul 14 2012, 06:38 PM) QUOTE (condemned2bfree @ Jul 13 2012, 02:59 PM) QUOTE (treeduck @ Jul 13 2012, 08:17 PM) The thing about the brick walling thing as regards Clockwork Angels, is that the album isn't that loud, I have to turn it up higher to get the same volume level as S&A but it's much "hotter" how's that work? from what you have described as opposed to my opinion of ca, its likely from the recording/mixing stage compression eq et cetra, of instruments at that stage. For me alex's style of playing contributes to the overall sound, i mean its not as linear as the 80's - lots of chords. anyhoo im a bit of an audiophile, but not to the extent where my enjoyment is marred by slight issues here, ca remains fantastic ....... a really amazing record. Im with lennon on this one; a great album remains so, even if its recorded on a tape recorder. A polarizing view, but a perception that rings true for me. A Ha! That's it: "Lots of chords". That's been something that's been going on since VT. It's much more DA-DA-DA-DA-DA-DA-DA than I've ever known before. Alex used to get a lot of love for his unique arpeggios and great riffs ('cause it was true), but I feel like VT+SA+CA is an onslaught/wall of guitars that sometimes works and sometimes just washes everything else away. Not much subtlety or finesse, just RAWWWWKKKK. Is that bad? I won't say 'yes', I'll just say that sometimes it's messier than it needs to be. I can't point to specific parts off the top of my head, but I know there are parts of several CA songs where I just cannot tell what any particular bass or guitar is doing behind the vocals. I don't know anything about producing or mixing, but since S&A and CA seem to have the same sorts of issues, well...wonder what Peter Collins or Terry Brown might be doing when the next album comes around That's a great point. A great example of this is Ceiling Unlimited, right from the get-go: DA DA DA DA DA DA DA DA DA DA DA DA.. (insert picture of me holding hands over my ears in pain)

QUOTE (Xanadoood @ Jul 14 2012, 06:26 PM) QUOTE (jnoble @ Jul 14 2012, 06:22 PM) QUOTE (Ancient Ways @ Jul 11 2012, 09:46 PM) It would be interesting to hear a classic older album that is generally considered to sound good remixed/mastered to sound brickwalled to give everyone a solid comparison and get the pros to wake up. I'm imagining two of the best produced rock albums in history, Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and GnR's Appetite For Destruction and how completly shitty they'd sound with the modern brickwalled/compressed to hell sound. It'd be like painting a mustache on the Mona Lisa before setting it on fire. Appetite for Destruction? Are you serious? Absolutley. Say what you want about Guns N Roses, but that album which was produced by a guy named Mike Clink, sounds fantastic. The mix, the space between the instruments, the levels, the sound he got from dicking around with Slash's amp and telling him to not touch a thing and go ahead and record all his parts (Slash said he never quite got his guitar to sound like that ever again in studio) AFD from a production point of view is a knock-out, especially considering how short of money the band was at the time. I'm pretty sure Slash played a borrowed Les Paul to record that album because he couldn't afford to buy one of his own yet

the chorus on this song, both the words themselves and the way Geddy sings them and the repetition, is really annoying

QUOTE (Ancient Ways @ Jul 11 2012, 09:46 PM) It would be interesting to hear a classic older album that is generally considered to sound good remixed/mastered to sound brickwalled to give everyone a solid comparison and get the pros to wake up. I'm imagining two of the best produced rock albums in history, Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and GnR's Appetite For Destruction and how completly shitty they'd sound with the modern brickwalled/compressed to hell sound. It'd be like painting a mustache on the Mona Lisa before setting it on fire.

Rush's sound has been muddy over the last three albums in large part because of the number of guitar and bass overdubs and also Geddy and Alex's choice in tone (super distorted/crunchy). Add that up and you get noise/mud. Kevin Shirley or whoever the sound engineer is isn't in a position to instruct the band members to do or not to do these things, that's up to the artist. If anyone, the producer can suggest it but it seems like Nick is too much of a fanboy to be too critical. If they stopped with the multiple overdubs like the previous albums before VT, we wouldn't be talking about this, IMHO

the ending of studio Working Man always sounds like Geddy sings "Well they call me the working MAID..."

I used to not like this album much because the production and heavy use of reverb on Ged's vocals made it all sound too mechanical and processed and almost robotic. However, my issues with the recent three albums...the layers of distorted guitars and bass, the songs that go on too long and are too dense.. made me appreciate Power Windows much more in recent years.

How about Neil doesn't pen any cringe-inducing lines like "Thank your stars you're not that way" "Thank your stars"?? That's a dated old-timey expression my grandmother would use

Nick needs to go. The last two albums are drink coasters in part specifically because of him

And the messed up part of all of this is that Ged and Alex both specifically said that the last couple of albums had too many layers and overdubs and CA was going to get away from that. Way to follow through, guys

I've been thinking about Lock And Key since last night. And Prime Mover

Hate to be a naysayer but I gave it 5 or 6 tries since it came out and I just don't care for it as a whole and probably never will I like the story, I like the artwork, I like that they went away from the boring preachy folk-rock of Snakes, but..... The songs are too long and too heavy/dense (something that's bothered me since VT), Geddy's voice sounds like total crap when he tries to sing high, there's little to no song structure, the melodies are weak to non-existant. And this is the third straight album of yet more cynical "the world can be a bad place and religion is scary" themed lyrics. Makes me look fondly back at the much more optimistic HYF era, mullets and suit jackets included Basically, listening to any of the last three Rush albums start to finish is just a chore that I can't be bothered with. I'll cherry pick a song here and there, but that's about all I can handle without getting a headache or bored.

Good call OP....Elton's 'Funeral For a Friend' is possibly my fav piece of music by anyone ever. It's been covered by Dream Theater and Elton's played it live almost every concert he's ever done, but the original studio cut is still far and away my favorite. By the way, speaking of Elton, check out another instrumental he did on the underrated 1981 The Fox album called 'Carla Etude'. Beautiful. Ditto 1978's 'Song For Guy' from the Single Man album.

I'm almost afraid for Geddy on the verge of this new tour. His voice has been getting weaker and weaker over the last couple of tours and some of the new CA songs sound pretty tough for him to pull off live night after night without some major strain/cracking/out of tune notes.

I'd love to hear it, but considering how many synths and keyboards and triggers the song has going on live, and you know how much Alex and Geddy love dealing with those, I highly highly doubt you'll ever see it live again.

I havent liked his sound much starting with TFE....too much distortion making too many songs sound like a wall of noise.

QUOTE (Drummerrobin @ Jul 4 2012, 07:53 AM) QUOTE (Steel Rat @ Jul 4 2012, 01:20 AM)Neil's lyrics are beautiful, perhaps his BEST. It is a special challenge to write about such an alien culture, but he does it perfectly. It's such a pleasure to feel like I experienced his journey with him. "The clouds were suddenly parted. For a moment, I could see the patterns of the landscape reaching to the eastern sea. I looked upon a presence spanning forty centuries... I thought of time and distance, the hardships of history, I heard the hope and the horror..." It's so utterly flawless. I can only assume that what Alex and Geddy actually mean is this: that they believe they failed to capture musically what Neil captured lyrically. But I think they sell themselves short, the music - and the song as a whole - moves me to tears every single time. Maybe there's something about the first couple minutes or so that cause people to tune out from boredom before they see it for what it truly is. Maybe I'm just crazy, but Tai Shan sings to me. I'm totally with you there! And though I understand why maybe some might consider the music to be a little cheesy (though to me it's part of the song's appeal), it's really nothing like as bad as many of the songs on Presto/ RTB albums. Just think of Superconductor, Face Up or You Bet Your Life. All that light weight pop-rock from those albums completely out-cheeses Tai Shan and everything else from the synth era albums imo. And not in a good way! Superconductor is one of my fav Rush songs from that era. I'll listen to that (or Face Up or YBYL) anyday over the new-age "this sounds like something heard in the dentist office" stylings of Tai Shan. Also, Second Nature fits the same bill. Those are two of the wimpiest songs Rush ever recorded

Geddy has also mentioned Lakeside Park as a song that he's not too proud of

Fly By Night for me Yes, Neil is still a kid and he's playing a less complex drumset on mostly basic rock songs, but the way his drums sound and the way he overplays on almost everything sounds great to my ears. I've air-drummed like a spaz to Anthem, Best I Can, BBB, By-Tor, FBN many times in the car

QUOTE (GeddyRulz @ Jun 26 2012, 12:20 PM) QUOTE (Gilbertk @ Jun 26 2012, 12:15 PM) I renewed my subscription when I saw this was coming so I'll wait, haha I subscribed for the first 10 years of the mag's existence and still have all those old issues. I eventually discontinued my subscription because I didn't like the direction the mag was heading... at the end, I found I almost NEVER cared about the bassist on the cover. I've been playing bass since I was 15 but never suscribed to any bass magazine because they always seem to make me feel like I'm either not practicing enough, not skilled enough, don't know enough about music or don't own good enough axes/amps/effects and can't afford most of what they advertise

I was just telling someone the story arc of CA is like a direct combination of The Fountain of Lamneth and 2112. A man who wants to see and explore the world, which is run by higher authorties who can be real dicks, and different things happen to him along the way.