Clockwork Angels

At the end of the band's Snakes & Arrows Tour in July 2008 the group took a year-and-a-half long break, during which Rush released the live albums Snakes & Arrows Live (2008) and the compilation Working Men (2009). The band reconvened in Los Angeles in December 2009 to discuss what projects they wanted to undertake in the coming year. Among their options were to start a new studio album and to undergo a major tour; as Neil Peart later wrote: "Fools that we are, we ended up doing both."[5] The idea of an album with a back story as opposed to a collection of different songs became an attractive one to the group, for which Peart detailed one set in a fictional world with a suite of songs telling a story.[5] Rush had worked on new material as early as February 2009, but Alex Lifeson denied a speculation that they were set to make a concept album at that time.[6]

Rush adopted the band's usual songwriting methods which involved Geddy Lee and Lifeson working on music at their home studios in Toronto while Peart worked alone from his California home on the lyrics. The group had encouraged one another to become more spontaneous with their solos in live performance which became a primary element while writing new music for Clockwork Angels.[5] Lifeson had to consciously hold himself back from layering guitar tracks as he wanted to emphasize the "basic rockiness of the songs" and resorted to greater use of double tracking.[7] The sessions were productive; in March 2010, Lee said: "Just about a month and a half ago we had no songs. And now we've been writing and now we've got about six songs that we just love" and Lifeson predicted a spring 2011 release.[8][9][10]

After some weeks into the writing Peart had developed his story further, leading to the band's agreement to adapt it into concept album while having each track make its own statement. Rush had previously recorded conceptual songs throughout the career, but had yet to commit to a full album concept. Lee was apprehensive towards the idea at first as he wanted the group to move forward in direction and not adopt something typical of fellow progressive rock bands of the 1970s.[11] Music Radar wrote that despite the story-based theme, the album fails to get weighed down by the plot.[7] In a change of pace, Peart wrote the lyrics to Clockwork Angels on a blank canvas without using any preconceived ideas that he had written down.[5] Early in January 2010, Peart had written some ideas and sent them to Lee and Lifeson, who then paired the words to the pieces of music that they had come up with.[5] Peart was influenced to devise a story and lyrics set in a dystopian steampunk-inspired world "lit only by fire", named after the same-titled book on the history of the Middle Ages by William Manchester and "driven by steam, intricate clockworks, and alchemy".[5][7] He had incorporated elements of ancient tradition with Tarot cards on Vapor Trails (2002) and the ancient Hindi game Leela on Snakes & Arrows and wanted to bring in alchemy for Clockwork Angels.[5] Peart wrote a lyrical "chapter" for each of the album's twelve tracks, representing the mood or atmosphere of each track with its own symbol as depicted in the artwork.[5] The plot is based on various sources such as Candide by Voltaire "with nods to" the novel The Sot-Weed Factor (1960) by John Barth and writers Michael Ondaatje, Joseph Conrad, Robertson Davies, Herbert Gold, Daphne du Maurier, and Cormac McCarthy, and early Spanish explorers in the American Southwest for the Seven Cities of Gold myth.[5]

Development paused in April 2010 when Rush announced the band's Time Machine Tour which was initially set to run from June to October of that year. The tour saw Rush perform two new songs that they had written for Clockwork Angels entitled "Caravan" and "BU2B".[12] They had also written "The Garden" and "The Anarchist" at that point.[11] With the first half of the Time Machine Tour finished, Lee and Lifeson resumed to write the rest of the album in early 2011, but the sessions had not produced strong enough results barring from some "furious jams" that became the basis of "Carnies" and "Headlong Flight".[5] There was also difficulty in matching Peart's lyrics to the new music which resulted in many rewrites, some on the day of recording via e-mail. Lifeson later complimented Peart: "Neil came through – he never complained."[7]

In August 2010, Lifeson remarked that the album was turning out to be very musically diverse. In particular, Lifeson referred to the nearly finished title track "Clockwork Angels" as an "epic song" and a "multi-parted piece," described as "very dynamic."[13] Peart said of the still in-work album in May 2011, "I intend it to be my highest achievement lyrically and drumming-wise."[14] When the final writing sessions began in late 2011, Lee and Lifeson decided to swap instruments at one particular meeting. The result was what became "The Wreckers."[5]

Clockwork Angels contains string arrangements composed of six violins and two cellos. Brad Madix stated when working the strings into the album: "I'd worked with strings in the past, but it was always either in a very quiet setting with minimal sound reinforcement or the violins were strictly electric. On Rush's Clockwork Angels Tour, the band definitely meant for the strings to be featured and acoustic."[15]

Though the band's 1976 and 1978 albums 2112 and Hemispheres are often referred to as concept albums, Clockwork Angels is the band's only true concept album as the album features a continuous theme with the lyrics telling a story that runs from beginning to end. Caress of Steel, 2112 and Hemispheres all feature a sidelong suite that tells a story. However, the lyrics of the other songs on those three albums have very little if anything to do with those stories.

Professional ratings

Aggregate scores
Source	Rating
Metacritic	74/100[24]
Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic	[25]
The Austin Chronicle	[26]
The A.V. Club	A-[27]
Blabbermouth.net	8/10[28]
Consequence of Sound	[29]
The Guardian	[30]
Metal Hammer	[31]
Now	[32]
PopMatters	[33]
Rolling Stone	[34]

Clockwork Angels was released on 8 June 2012 in Australia,[1] followed by the United States and Canada on 12 June and in Europe on 13 June. British magazine Classic Rock released a limited edition fan pack containing the album and 132-page magazine on 11 June.[35]

The single "Caravan" was released 1 June 2010 to radio stations and made available for digital download at this time along with "BU2B".[3] The second single, "Headlong Flight", was released to radio stations and for online streaming on 19 April 2012.

The album debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard 200 with sales of 103,000 units the first week.[36][37] In Canada, the album debuted at No. 1 with sales of 20,000 units.[38] By 20 June, over 40,000 copies of the Classic Rock fan pack had been sold. Had this release been eligible for the UK Albums Chart, the album would have debuted at No. 1.[39] As more people bought the fan pack than the album alone, the latter debuted at No. 76 in the UK before it reached its peak at No. 21.[40]

Clockwork Angels holds a score of 74 out of 100 on Metacritic based on 14 reviews, which indicates "generally favourable reviews".[24] Classic Rock scored the album a 9/10 and called it Rush's best release in 30 years.[41] Jamie Thompson of The Guardian wrote in his review that "those who worship at the temple of Rush will be in raptures; for those who remain agnostic, there may well be enough here to justify a leap of faith."[30] Brave Words & Bloody Knuckles editor-in-chief Martin Popoff gave the album a perfect 10/10 and said of it, "one can't deny that there's more purpose and focus here than on any Rush album ever".[42]

In 2019, Classic Rock named Clockwork Angels the number one album of the 2010s.

All lyrics are written by Neil Peart[43]; all music is composed by Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson.

Credits adapted from the album's liner notes.

Rush

• Geddy Lee – bass guitar, bass pedals, lead vocals, synthesizers
• Alex Lifeson – guitars (electric, acoustic and 12-string), additional keyboards
• Neil Peart – drums, percussion

Additional musicians

• David Campbell – String arrangement and conducting
• Jason Sniderman – piano on "The Garden"

Production

• Arranged and produced by Rush and Nick Raskulinecz
• Recording engineers: Richard Chycki, Martin Cooke, Jason DuFour, Paul Fig and Stephen Koszler
• Mixed by Nick Raskulinecz
• Mastered by Brian Gardner