SNAKES & ARROWS

I waited anxiously for this album as i'm huge Rush fan. Now that i have heard it I can say it has dissapointed me quite much. This was supposed to be return to the good old Rush. Far cry is a nice opener. Nothing particulary great but as a whole it isn't a bad song. Armor and sword is even better. Heavy riff mixed with acoustic background and over 6 minutes of lenght. But there's something that made me started to worry when I listened to the album for the first time. I heard over 10 minutes of it and still no guitar solo. WTF? Workin' them angels is one of the worst on Snakes and arrows. Completely uninspiring, borring and Geddy's singing is quite annoing in this one. And still no solo... The larger bowl starts nice with acoustic guitar but then becomes an ordinary song. And hey theres a guitar solo. Or is it? Only few seconds, you can easily miss it. What happened to Lifeson? He plays either acoustic or some boring noisy riffs. Where's the finesse from the old years? Spinddrift reminds me of worst parts from Test for echo or Vapor trails. Boring, noisy and pointless. Fortunately then comes the best track since many many years. The instrumental The main monkey business is really brilliant, fantastic song. Maybe not as crazy as YYZ but something a bit similar. Great guitar passages, wonderful keyboard work and dynamic rytmic section. Yeah, this is outstanding, it will sound great during live performances. The way the wind blows has a bit similar sound at the beginning, but then becomes very boring. Somewhat boring, with poor guitar solo and awfully sweet Geddy's voice. The second instrumental - Hope is a nice acoustic miniature. Enjoable filler. Faithless is comletely average. Typical Rush song from the late 80s or 90s. Same with Bravest face. There's nothing here to be remembered. Good news go first - ok, there's quite nice guitar solo but really short. Nothing more. But then comes the third and last instrumental Malignant narcissism and it's absolutely stunning. But why is t so short? I want more of that mind blowing, crazy rytm Geddy plays!!! Just as the did in the past. This is HUGE (but should have been at least two times longer). We hold on is better than average, dynamic closer. All in all quite uneven album but mostly very disapointing. At least the production is way better than last time. Peart's drums sound very powerful, Geddy plays nice but his singing is not very good. I preffered when he was screaming more. Lifeson stays far behind those two. He lost something. Where are the crazy, beautiful solos and memorable riffs? And what the hell is he trying to prove with his noisy wall of sound? This is noise not music.