After some weeks into the writing Peart had developed his story further, leading to the band's agreement to adapt it into a concept album while having each track make its own statement. Rush had previously recorded conceptual songs throughout their career, but had yet to commit to a full album concept. Lee was apprehensive towards the idea at first as he wanted the group to move forward in direction and not adopt something typical of fellow progressive rock bands of the 1970s. Music Radar wrote that despite the story-based theme, the album fails to get weighed down by the plot. In a change of pace, Peart wrote the lyrics to Clockwork Angels on a blank canvas without using any preconceived ideas that he had written down. Early in January 2010, Peart had written some ideas and sent them to Lee and Lifeson, who then paired the words to the pieces of music that they had come up with. Peart was influenced to devise a story and lyrics set in a dystopian steampunk-inspired world "lit only by fire", named after the same-titled book on the history of the Middle Ages by William Manchester and "driven by steam, intricate clockworks, and alchemy". He had incorporated elements of ancient tradition with Tarot cards on Vapor Trails (2002) and the ancient Hindi game leela on Snakes & Arrows and wanted to bring in alchemy for Clockwork Angels. Peart wrote a lyrical "chapter" for each of the album's twelve tracks, representing the mood or atmosphere of each track with its own symbol as depicted in the artwork. The plot is based on various sources such as Candide by Voltaire "with nods to" the novel The Sot-Weed Factor (1960) by John Barth and writers Michael Ondaatje, Joseph Conrad, Robertson Davies, Herbert Gold, Daphne du Maurier, and Cormac McCarthy, and early Spanish explorers in the American Southwest for the Seven Cities of Gold myth.
In August 2010, Lifeson remarked that the album was turning out to be very musically diverse. In particular, Lifeson referred to the nearly finished title track "Clockwork Angels" as an "epic song" and a "multi-parted piece", described as "very dynamic". Peart said of the still in-work album in May 2011, "I intend it to be my highest achievement lyrically and drumming-wise." When the final writing sessions began in late 2011, Lee and Lifeson decided to swap instruments at one particular meeting. The result was what became "The Wreckers".
The second phase of recording took place at Revolution Recording in Toronto between October and December 2011. The strings were recorded at Ocean Way Recording in Los Angeles in January 2012.
On his personal website, Peart revealed that he took a new approach in writing and recording his drum tracks for the album:
The single "Caravan" was released June 1, 2010, to radio stations and made available for digital download at this time along with "BU2B". The second single, "Headlong Flight", was released to radio stations and for online streaming on April 19, 2012.
Credits adapted from the album's liner notes.
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