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Somebody has got to sit Rush down and read them the rules - you know, the ones that state that they have to act their freaking ages and stop jamming around so damn much; that six and seven-minute songs with lots of badass musicianship are out; that there can't possibly be new sounds to discover; that concept albums are so, like, Hemispheres; that songs are supposed to be verse, chorus, verse - c'mon, call in the pro LA tunesmiths already!
 
And don't forget to tell them to get at least five or six backing musicians on stage - that's what all the really big bands do; that they need to write some tunes about chicks, for chrissake; that the drummer must play to the song - knock it off with all that, you know, "extra stuff."
 
And most of all, won't somebody please tell these guys that groups that have been together for 38 years are supposed to suck? They're not meant to have breakthroughs and keep getting better and better. Can't anybody send them the memo? 

But wait. hold on a second. If Rush decided to buckle down and behave, if they adhered to the standards and practices of Music 101, that would make them sound like practically every other band out there. They would become safe, predictable and oh so un-Rush-like.
 
Fortunately, the three men (bassist-vocalist Geddy Lee, guitarist Alex Lifeson and drummer Neil Peart) who power their way through the sprawling, open-hearted and wildly alive Clockwork Angels know that the best way to avoid creative stasis is to simply be themselves, and in doing so they're growing in sophistication and revealing new depths of feeling at an astonishing rate. 

Produced by the band and Nick Raskulinecz (the same team that yielded 2007's Snakes & Arrows), the album is built around a narrative of a young man's journey towards his dreams, and fittingly, the music comes at you in a nonrepetitive succession of images, textures and moods, many of them strikingly abrupt - the band never hammers a point for too long; they make a case quickly and move on. It's propulsive and heady - by turns dizzyingly sensual, gut-rocking, lofty and raw - but there's a warm, human spirit to the band's rhythmic volleys, and they have an uncanny gift for imbuing even their most orgiastic musical moments with a unity of feeling and purpose.
 
What's most amazing about the general state of Rush in 2012 - and this is played out vividly throughout Clockwork Angels - is how comfortable they are in their own skin. "The best actors don't let the wheels show," Henry Fonda once said, and in their own idiosyncratic way, Rush never get bogged down in craft. Their songs, epic in scope, abstract yet achingly personal, rendered here with a commanding sonic radiance, are born out of instinct and impulses, unique as a fingerprint and every bit as fascinating.
A train signal, a dark and descending bassline and some ominous orchestration... Suddenly, blam! - Rush explode into a tough, feisty rocker driven by Alex Lifeson's gritty guitar riff.
 
As he has done for some time, Geddy Lee sings in the middle register of his voice, and while some might yearn for the days of the banshee wail, the fact is that he has become a far more captivating and intriguing singer with age. When he sings, "In a world where I feel so small, I can't stop thinking big," he's so full of wonder that the words gain a momentum of their own.
 
The rhythms shift dramatically - it's not just that Peart has superb quirky timing, but that he gets everything imaginable out of his playing. Lifeson veers between gnarly riffing and dreamy top-string textures, and for a while it seems as if he's teasing a solo, biding his time, but when he leans into it he's biting and sassy, tearing off angular phrases before dispatching echo-driven sheets of sound that seem to take flight.
Whereas the single version of BU2B that was released last year kicked down the barn door without warning, now it begins with lightly strummed acoustics. The main riff is just as smashing, however, a growling, grinding earth-mover over which Lee sings, "I was brought up to believe the universe has a plan/ we are only human, it's not ours to understand."
 
Most bands would stay right there, but Rush keep tossing the ball around - Lee and Peart lock in during the bridge at full gallop, with bass and drums pulsating and bubbling.
 
A solemn, vaguely religious tone builds - Lee's vocals take on a choir-like cadence - and then Lifeson uncorks a brief zinger of a solo - stabbing, thrusting notes that thrash the listener about before smacking headlong into the final chorus. 

A tough, forceful rocker that works its way into the thicket of your senses.
A pastoral delight that comes over you like a daydream. Graceful and buoyant acoustics, tasteful orchestration, and Lee singing in a simple, unaffected style make up the bedrock of The Garden.
 
Peart joins in on a second verse, laying down a soft shuffle, and even when he appears to be doing very little, his sense of composition and movement has a profound impact. His patterns are so natural that it's almost as if the sticks breezed into his hands and started playing him.
 
After a spellbindingly romantic piano interlude, Lifeson reaches in and pulls out a multi-dimensional guitar solo, one which recalls the mysterious epiphanies from Limelight. There's a certain melancholy quality to his phrasing, as is he's pausing briefly to look behind his shoulder.
 
By the end, he's rejoined his bandmates and the three march off intrepidly together. They don't dwell in the moment - there's no needlessly showy flourishes or building the crescendo up as "epic" - but the further away they get the more it becomes apparent that the spell they've cast and the resonance of Clockwork Angels will linger on.