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.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.false2022-10-22 13:01:31Snakes & Arrows7.820072007-05-012007-05-0163Hard RockProgressive RockRock1116152113755db763a78-83e9-4744-9038-0b402c3d7c1d534ee493-bfac-4575-a44a-0ae41e2c3fe4a2ada2d0-d8aa-3406-94da-1ec352829903/media/data/media5/Music/Rush/Snakes & Arrows (2007)/folder.jpgRushAlbumArtistRushArtistRushRushRush was a Canadian rock band that primarily comprised Geddy Lee (bass guitar, keyboards, vocals), Alex Lifeson (guitar) and Neil Peart (drums, percussion, lyrics). The band formed in Toronto in 1968 with Lifeson, drummer John Rutsey, and bassist and vocalist Jeff Jones, whom Lee immediately replaced. After Lee joined, the band went through several line-up changes before arriving at its classic power trio line-up with the addition of Peart in July 1974, who replaced Rutsey four months after the release of their self-titled debut album; this line-up was kept intact for the remainder of the band's career.
Rush first achieved moderate success with their second album, Fly by Night (1975). The commercial failure of their next album Caress of Steel, released seven months after Fly by Night, resulted in the band almost getting dropped from their then-record label Mercury Records. Rush's fourth album, 2112 (1976), reignited their popularity, becoming their first album to enter the top five on the Canadian charts. Their next two albums, A Farewell to Kings (1977) and Hemispheres (1978), were also successful, with the former becoming Rush's first to enter the UK charts. The band's popularity continued throughout the 1980s and 1990s, with albums charting highly in Canada, the US and the UK, including Permanent Waves (1980), Moving Pictures (1981), Signals (1982), Grace Under Pressure (1984), Roll the Bones (1991), Counterparts (1993) and Test for Echo (1996). Rush continued to record and perform until 1997, after which the band entered a four-year hiatus due to personal tragedies in Peart's life. The trio regrouped in 2001 and released three more studio albums: Vapor Trails (2002), Snakes & Arrows (2007), and Clockwork Angels (2012). Rush performed their final concerts in 2015, with Peart retiring from music later that year. Lifeson later commented in January 2018 that the band decided not to resume activity following the R40 Tour, which was later cemented by Peart's death from glioblastoma, a type of brain cancer, on January 7, 2020, at the age of 67. Lee and Lifeson have continued to periodically work together since Peart's death, including performing at the 25th anniversary celebration of South Park and tributes to then-recently deceased Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins in 2022.
Rush were known for their virtuosic musicianship, complex compositions and eclectic lyrical motifs drawing heavily on science fiction, fantasy and philosophy. The band's style changed over the years, from a blues-inspired hard rock beginning, later moving into progressive rock, then a period in the 1980s marked by heavy use of synthesizers, before returning to guitar-driven hard rock at the end of the 1980s. Clockwork Angels marked a return to progressive rock. The members of Rush have been acknowledged as some of the most proficient players on their respective instruments, with each winning numerous awards in magazine readers' polls over the years.
As of 2022, Rush ranks 84th in the US with sales of 26 million albums and industry sources estimate their total worldwide album sales at over 42 million. They have been awarded 14 platinum and 3 multi-platinum albums in the US, plus 17 platinum albums in Canada. Rush were nominated for seven Grammy Awards, won several Juno Awards, and won an International Achievement Award at the 2009 SOCAN Awards. The band was inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame in 1994 and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2013. Some consider Rush to be one of the greatest rock bands of all time.