“But when I was 18, I studied for about a year, classical guitar. What’s even more incredible is that Lifeson has had very little formal musical training. Some sneer at Rush as just another diehard throwback to’70s progressive-rock excesses, but there is simply no denying their incredible instrumental prowess and the ingenious complexities of their songwriting and arranging. Sprawling, instrumentally and philosophically ambitious epics such as “Armor and Sword,” “Workin’ Them Angels” and “The Way the Wind Blows” are surging aural seas of tempestuous bass and drums and amazingly intricate acoustic and electric guitar textures, with Lee providing the often melodramatic narrative in that in that high yet weirdly commanding voice of his. Everything was in color and it was very, very invigorating, from November to early December.”Īpparently all this fresh air and beautiful mountain scenery inspired them to reach for the peak of their powers, as one listen to “Snakes & Arrows” dynamically demonstrates. It was really nice to just walk around the grounds, through the woods.

“It’s pretty intense work in the studio and you don’t want too many distractions,” Lifeson said, “but we took a day off every week and we’d go to town, we’d have dinner, we’d walk around, and when somebody else was doing something, you’d get out. One imagines these guys might have become sick of the sight of each other long before the end of that lengthy retreat, but there were separate cabins on the premises that offered solitude when needed, and there was plenty of room to wander.

There’s no traffic to deal with, there’s no hotels to deal with, you’re there, you get up in the morning, the girls cook breakfast for you, you go in the studio and you work all day.” It’s very comfortable and you can just focus on your project. “It’s situated on one of the mountaintops, or hills I suppose, and it has a beautiful view, a panoramic view, and the studio has really top-notch equipment, it’s really spread out. “It’s just outside of Woodstock, New York,” Lifeson said in a phone interview from his Toronto home. “Snakes & Arrows” was recorded at the residential Allaire Studios, where drummer Neal Neil Peart, bassist-keyboardist-vocalist Geddy Lee and guitarist Alex Lifeson set up housekeeping for six weeks back in November-December 2006. If the music of Rush’s most recent album feels lofty and majestic, it’s probably because it was made on a mountaintop high in the Catskills, in surroundings conducive to the creation of the kind of soaring and mighty prog-rock sound this Canadian trio of virtuosos started perfecting back in the mid-’70s.

Allaire studios