Snakes & Arrows
2 1/2 stars
Geddy Lee sounds authoritative when he’s singing about what’s really important: fantastical battles, extraterrestrial societies and pseudo-scientific phenomena. Not quite so much when he takes on here-and-now trivialities like, you know, love, faith and politics.
Snakes & Arrows, the 18th studio album from Canadian power trio Rush, finds Lee (with lyrics, as always, courtesy of drummer Neil Peart) getting “real,” a tack at considerable odds with his hard-to-take-completely-seriously vocal style. Not to mention, “Like a flower in the desert that blooms only at night/I will quietly resist” doesn’t quite have the panache of “When our weary world was young/The struggle of the ancients first began,” now, does it?
The band’s insistence on living in the here and now is only half the problem, however. Of the LP’s 14 cuts, only four offer any real musical muscle—hard-driving opener “Far Cry,” the mandolin-aided yet still rather beefy “Workin’ Them Angels” and showy instrumentals “The Main Monkey Business” and “Malignant Narcissism.” The rest of the disc sputters between easily forgettable (“Armor and Sword,” “Spindrift”) and virtually unlistenable (“Bravest Face,” which sees Lee attempt a few ill-fated octave drops).
Of course, die-hard Rush fans won’t care, the group’s many detractors won’t bother, and the new songs will probably sound a lot crunchier on the band’s upcoming tour. Still, it’s tough to sit through Snakes & Arrows without wishing Lee could get back to singing about skirmishing trees and reverse polarity, whatever the heck that might be.