Snakes & Arrows

Snakes & Arrows is a 2007 studio album by the Canadian rock band Rush. It was their eighteenth full-length studio album and their first studio outing since 2004's Feedback. It was also their first complete studio album since Vapor Trails in 2002. The album was recorded in five weeks between November and December 2006 at Allaire Studios in New York’s Catskill Mountains and mixed and mastered at Ocean Way Studios in Los Angeles, California. Snakes & Arrows was released on CD on May 1, 2007, as a double LP album on June 19 (limited to 5,000 copies), as well as the new MVI (Music Video Interactive) format (limited to 25,000 copies) on June 26. Snakes & Arrows debuted at #3 on the The Billboard 200 chart where it remained for 14 weeks. It was certified gold in Canada in September 2007. The track "Malignant Narcissism" was nominated for a Grammy Award under the category Best Rock Instrumental Performance. The album was named as one of Classic Rock‘s 10 essential progressive rock albums of the decade.
According to drummer and lyricist Neil Peart, inspiration for the title of the album was conceived after considerable research from several sources; the 2000-year-old Buddhist game called "Leela, the Game of Self Knowledge," the related children's game Snakes and Ladders (also known as Chutes and Ladders), and Hamlet's quote "slings and arrows."[16] This information helped convince bassist Geddy Lee and guitarist Alex Lifeson to adopt the original painting of the age old game board as the cover for the new album.