JOPLIN, Mo. — Ever since I heard the first chords of “Headlong Flight” on the radio, I’ve been excited for Rush’s newest album.

Almost five years in the making, reviews for “Clockwork Angels” have been glowing -- or at least as glowing as reviews for a prog-rock band can be, anyway. See, that’s a big deal, because reviewers have NEVER liked Rush. But even Rolling Stone, which has never taken much of a shine to the trio, gave this album a favorable review.

Ever since it pushed Adele to No. 3 on the Billboard charts, “Clockwork Angels” has been earning some high praise. It’s well deserved, but I’m amazed that the critics love it.

This album has everything that popular music critics hate: long song lengths, intelligent, poetic lyrics, instrumental proficiency -- heck, the thing is a concept album. Yet the reviews are good, and sales are better.

I’ve been listening to the album almost nonstop. Every song is strong -- even the 8-minute ones. The lyrics are some of the most evocative in lyricist and drummer Neil Peart’s history, and the melodies combine just the right amount of prog-rock wankery with soaring chord structures.

Though vocalist and bassist Geddy Lee can’t hit the same high notes he used to, he still has an incredible, unique voice and sings masterfully. Alex Lifeson’s ability to go from solid chords to intricate melodies is still awe-inspiring.

It’s easily their strongest album since the critically acclaimed “Moving Pictures,” which featured legendary songs “Tom Sawyer,” “Red Barchetta,” “Limelight” and the instrumental “YYZ.”

I don’t know if it’s my favorite Rush album ever -- I’m pretty attached to “Power Windows.” But I’ve listened to this album more than any other the band has released since 1993’s “Counterparts.” And it has me geeked out about Rush again.

Though I’ve always been a big fan of the band, I never could get into their most recent albums. “Presto” and “Roll the Bones” sounded mundane compared to the band’s usual style; “Test for Echo,” “Vapor Trails” and “Snakes and Arrows” never got enough of my attention for me to even buy the albums. And I don’t need any of the retrospective compilations they’ve released over the last few years.

It feels good to be excited about Rush again. I had no idea what made “Clockwork Angels,” the band’s 20th album, so unique until I found a story about the album on The Sun. Instead of charting and crafting intricate orchestrations, the band played off the cuff for a lot of the sessions.

Lee told The Sun that during the most recent tour, band members were channeling their inner Dave Matthews and improvising more on stage.

“That great feeling of not quite knowing where you were going or how you were going to get out of it,” Lee said in an interview with The Sun. “It was really exciting. We were really pushing ourselves. Later we said, ‘Wouldn’t it be great to have those moments on record, too?’”

So Peart, long known for his almost OCD-like composition, just played. All of them did. Instead of sticking to a score, they improvised, experimented and jammed.

And man, what a result. The title track is a beautifully syncopated song with a soaring chorus and bluesy jam. “The Wreckers” starts out like an upbeat jam, then becomes a brilliantly orchestrated ballad. “Halo Effect” is over too quickly, and “Headlong Flight” deserves every bit of airplay it’s getting.

I’ll be listening to this album for a while.



Sketchy concept

My only problem with “Clockwork Angels” is that it’s not much of a concept album.

There’s a story about some sort of survivor traveling through a steam-punky world looking for enlightenment. There’s alchemists, an anarchist, a controlling authority called the Watchmaker, carnies, an explosion at a carnival, a failed love affair with an acrobat and a shipwreck.

It took me finally looking at the CD booklet to remember that it was a concept album. Sure enough, there’s a story. But it’s all lyrical, and the way I listen to music, I don’t always pay attention to the lyrics. (That’s probably an entirely separate column.)

When I think of concept albums, I think of the Decemberists’ “Hazards of Love,” or Dream Theater’s “Scenes from a Memory.” Those feature a continuity of themes, from the stories told in the lyrics to the musical elements.

A recurring phrase, repeated just once, can bring a sense of completion to a concept album. It makes it worth the time spent listening all the way through.

But, as I said, there are no such musical themes in “Clockwork Angels.” Calling it a concept album is a stretch. But that’s a small gripe for an album that has got me crazy about Rush again. Pardon me while I go download “Snakes and Arrows.”



Sci-fi short on substance

Speaking of stories, I’ve finished devouring the two latest novels from Daniel H. Wilson, “Amped” and “Robopocalypse.”

They are not the best books I’ve ever read, but they propelled along at fast enough clips to keep my attention. The subjects were interesting, and Wilson’s writing is compelling.

“Amped,” his newest, tells the story of Owen Gray, whose father created a neurological implant that increases humans’ brain power. The separation between the implants and regular folks is an over-the-top allegory for several types of political, class warfare we see today. Eventually, things go bad and Gray uses abilities of the implant that are unique (Gray’s father gave his something extra).

While the book was good, there just wasn’t enough of it. I finished the story in two days -- easy to do with less than 300 pages. The world Wilson created could have been expanded on pretty easily, as well as the lives of Gray and the antagonists.

As Gray uses his abilities, the implant takes over and does all the work. The book reads the same way -- instead of pursuing a course of action, Gray always narrates like he’s catching up with events. And that’s too bad, because there is some freaking cool stuff in “Amped.” Robotic exoskeletons, implants programmed with military intel, parallel media coverage of events, comparisons to real-life movements, the exploration of getting lost inside yourself and what it means to be human -- so many things were teased, but not developed.

It’s a good story, but disappointing. I’m glad I checked it out from the Joplin Public Library, instead of dropping $20 on it -- I would have felt ripped off.

I enjoyed “Robopocalypse” more, but that’s probably because I haven’t read “World War Z” yet. Wilson’s journal-style documentation of a war with robots mirrors a similar battle in Max Brooks’ “Z.”

It suffers from the same amount of underdevelopment, just not as much. For being assembled as journal entries, it moves at a pretty quick pace. I just wanted to read more about the characters. The story’s narrator puts some characters on pretty high pedestals that don’t seem earned once their actions are revealed. Steven Spielberg is directing a movie version of the book, due out in 2014.

Wilson has a masters degree in robotics and artificial intelligence; that background makes his fiction intriguing, but ultimately unfulfilling. It seems like there is so much more detail he could go into.

Though the two books left me wanting more, there’s something that still piques my curiosity about Wilson’s other work. Maybe it’s the titles: “Bro-Jitsu: The Martial Art of Sibling Smackdown,” “A Boy and His Bot,” “How to Survive a Robot Uprising,” etc. He also has some short stories available for free.