Rush are at it again

Harry,

One can live in hope of better sound quality than Snakes and Arrows?

I wouldn't hold out much hope though.

 Nick Raskulinecz who worked on Snakes has worked on this.

Stu.

Yeah

It's being released in 24/96 too. Which makes it doubly depressing if Snakes is anything to go by.

But the tours are fabulous and the DVD/BluRay is a treat. And the albums don't sound quite so bad in the car.

Things couldn't be any worse than the current situation. They can only go one way or stay still. So I'll take the 50% and we'll see if common sense breaks out. They are on a new label (Roadrunner) - does this inspire hope or just send us headlong into a different brick wall?

You  get a keyring and comic if you pre- order the bundle from burning shed.

Stu.

Cor.

Be still my beating heart.

Album ordered already.

Tickets for the USA tour dates from Monday 25th.

Howard,

Have you Pre-ordered this double vinyl?

Stu.

I will have to buy it for completions sake. I don't expect great sound quality, and I don't really expect music anywhere near their greatest, but I will still get it and listen a few times.

Live I am quite sure I will love it, but especially all the other tracks in the show, which will be just seeing 'dear old friends' again. With nearly forty years of back catalogue to choose from, and their eagerness to play tracks that have never, or hardly been played before, there will be gems, the hits and some complete surprises.

More than any of that, they will enjoy playing live, their enjoyment be infectious, and their self depreciation of their place in music and their personalities will be refreshing.

I will always buy tickets for a Rush tour, as they have never let their fans down on stage. Perhaps the best thing about a new Rush album is the prospect of another tour, so no matter how little you like the music and sound quality of the album, it is a means to a lovely end.

Stu, no I haven't I'll wait to hear some tracks first, if they are of "Live at the Beeb" standard then maybe worth having?

Jamie, CA tour dates tomorrow 25th  only USA at the moment.

Details and video of Headlong Flight from album and new single:-

http://www.rush.com/clockworkangelstour.php

I came face to face with the Fan Pack in WH Smith and so of course I had to. Some great songs. It's a very good album IMO. The usual wall of sound that we're now seemingly stuck with. Not so maxed out as to clip (unlike Snakes And Arrows) but with very limited dynamic range. It will sound good in the car but in the lounge it's pretty crap. At least I've got something which might be vaguely collectible (in the fullness of time) and I am saved the expense of buying the HiRes version when it is released.

It's interesting - if you're that way inclined - to go through the Rush catalogue and trace the band's musical development, twists and turns included. It is equally possible to go backwards through their output and again with a few twists and turns excepted, hear the dynamic range increase and the musical coherence and musicianship come into focus. 

To actually hear the band playing the new songs, as opposed to having them flung across the room like mud heading for a wall, we'll have to wait for the live shows. Unless you have Time Machine which contains two. And these tracks sound a lot better on the concert footage than the studio tracks just released.

I have only had the opportunity to listen on the IPod (watching football has taken priority), but I really like it. Could it be their best effort in over twenty, or even thirty years? It's like the '80s never happened!

It does sound dynamically compressed, though, which is so frustrating after the abuse Rush have had as a result of various mastering gaffs. Vapour Trails is one of the most distorted CDs ever (Alex Lifeson refers to their intention to remaster/mix it in the accompanying magazine), Snakes and Arrows is a good album but loud and flat, and the Sector box sets were a "dog's breakfast". 

It's just appeared on HD Tracks, but UK customers are denied the opportunity to pay for it. 

I can't wait for the O2 gig. It's been suggested that they might play the whole of 2112, as it's now only 100 years in the future!

Keith

Keith,

I sent my copy back and so glad i didn't take a punt on the vinyl.

I am not a Rush completest, but still sad they had to use the same guy that messed up Snakes.

Why anyone would want a HD tracks Hi-Res copy of it ?Is beyond me

Shite in =Turd out 

I will make do with my original vinyl and CD pressings from there golden years.

Stu.

Hi Stu,

Actually, the Hi Res Moving Pictures is rather good, but not a patch on my original vinyl copy, which is awesome. The Hi Res Snakes and Ladders is better than the CD.! but that's not saying much. 

I recently bought a pristine vinyl 2112 for £3. Happy days:-)

They've done a nice job on Moving Pictures 24/96. The 24/96 of A Farewell To Kings and Fly By Night have also come over very well IMO but at present the only way into these is via the very patchy Sector box sets. I expect they will be drip fed by the likes of HD Tracks over time. It is also said that for the remastering of the Sector box sets they went back to 24/96 as a start point but it is unclear if they were native, upsampled or a mixture of both.

I've also ripped the DVD-A Snakes And Arrows to 24/96 and it sounds absolutely dire. You can hear the peaks hitting the limiters like a hammer. This was a stereo rendered rip via DVD Audio Extractor of a 5.1 mix. This really pisses me off because I think Snakes is a truly brilliant album (excepting a bit of padding) and it comes off so well on the audio of the tour footage which even if pumped is not brick walled, unlike Time Machine which has been pushed a bit too far.

For me, Angels is in places a bit derivative of Snakes (which I suppose is logical) but it's still an album I will enjoy very much on the PC and in the car.  But alas not on the system. As with Snakes, Vapor Trails and Test For Echo the turd cannot be polished. What a bloody waste. And the label is laughing all the way to the bank because I've still bought them. I was hanging out for the 24/96 Angels but close proximity to the CD in a shop weakened me.It's not surprising that HD Tracks has limited distribution but after hearing the 16/44 it's a moot point.

Keith and Harry,

Have you got this CD?

Or this double vinyl?

No, but I may take plunge, particularly if you rate it.

I more or less wore out All the World's a Stage in my teens. One of the nice things about the Fan Pack is the pictures from Rush's UK tours in '78 and ' 79. I was there at Hammersmith Odeon for both, so I do love the early stuff. They lost me, to some extent, when the synths eclipsed the guitars. 

The new one is a little quieter than Snakes and Arrows, but still very hot. The dr.loudnesswars website suggests it is slightly less compressed too.

I couldn't see me in the Hammersmith pictures either.

At the Farewell To Kings gig, the guy behind me was freaking out all the way through, except for the last twenty minutes when he fell asleep. When the concert finished I discovered that he had puked on my poster, which I had carefully and lovingly stowed under my seat. That sort of thing can hit you hard when you're 16 and, as you can tell, I never completely got over it :-(

No. Any good? I suspect the answer is yes.

Agreed. On the one hand a small step in the right direction. On the other, it's like jumping off the 90th floor rather than the 100th.

Hi Harry,

I'm afraid so. I've now had a chance to listen to part of it at home, and it's a bit of a mess. It astonishes me that they can go on and on about the mixing process and then make such a HorlIcks of the final result. They obviously never google themselves.  Perhaps the vinyl will be better (£70 on Amazon!). Have heard the original 24/96 Sector version of Closer to the Heart?

Keith

I have e-mailed and entered on forums and blogs about the awful final result. Never even provoked a response.

So I assume they don't worry about it, as long as fans buy (and I guess listen via iPods) they just count the coins.

I've never heard any complaints about the vinyl. In a parallel universe I suppose I could get it and copy it to 24/96. Rush cheerleader though I am, that's just going too far - and could give just as bad a result for all we know at this stage.

I've got it playing on the PC now. Actually sounds more muddy and muddled than Snakes, probably because many of the songs are denser. Oh well, back to the back catalogue. They are forcing me to be an old git trapped in the 70s/80s and I object. But I'll get over it.

Harry, you're right. I've finally found time to sit down and listen properly, and it's a brick walled horror. I wonder if the apparently better DR is because it has a few quiet intros and silent pauses. My wife commented that "...it's very in your face" without knowing about my opinion. It's a shame because there's a really good album trapped in there.

This morning, to console myself, I bought Power Windows on vinyl in my local 2nd hand shop for £5. I'm listening to it now and it sounds bloody marvellous.

Man, that takes me back....

Last Rush album I bought on vinyl. Maybe I should have kept going.

Gentlemen,

I've been duly obtaining every version of the new album and will give my impressions when time allows comparison. I've heard the new vinyl on my modest and somewhat forgiving home system, RP6/Exact/Nait2/Epos 11ES, and enjoyed it there. At the shop presently I have ripped the CD release into the UnitiServe and have been listening via ND5XS/XP5XS/152/Flat/155/Rega RS5 and it doesn't sound bad but definitely no sonic wonder. I don't have the album on vinyl to compare here at the shop but do have the Caravan/BU2B 45 RPM single from Record Store day last year (Red vinyl) and that is much more engaging and sounds more dynamic but the vinyl high frequency sounds somewhat sibilant. Will compare Caravan on the two vinyl versions eventually. 

Yeah, some pretty great playing on this album and I think Nick R gets an energetic performance out of them in the studio but somewhere a shedload of compression seems to be getting in the product. A shame indeed. 

I took a look at the dr.loudness-wars website and looked at their measurements some various releases of the same albums and it is shocking how they (and albums in general) have increased in compression over the years with what looks like a huge and general trend in the mid 90s.

Concerning Rush's worst compressed album, Vapor Trails, it is interesting to see the massive difference between the CD version and the vinyl versions, and the vinyl version was transferred to 320 mp3 for their measuring. They don't give track by track DB ranges as they do on many of the albums but the difference from DR rating of 11 (mid transition) and 5 (mid BAD) for the vinyl and CD versions respectively speaks volumes. I am listening to the vinyl on RP6/Exact/Stageline into the above mentioned shop system and an example such as Ghost Rider is an obvious showing of the difference between the two so I am putting some confidence in their measurements. Still a bit wall of sound on the vinyl but infinitely more listenable, tuneful and relaxed. I'm so glad I have a copy on the black stuff. And of course live on the Vapor Trails tour the songs absolutely rocked. Ceiling unlimited I remember clearly.

Connon