Clockwork Angels is the nineteenth and final studio album by Canadian rock band Rush, released on June 8, 2012, on Roadrunner Records.

[2] Two songs that would eventually appear on the album, "Caravan" and "BU2B", were recorded in April 2010, and had been released to radio stations and made available as a digital download on June 1, 2010.

A 10" picture disc single of the song "The Garden" was released as part of the 2013 Record Store Day Black Friday sale, limited to 3,000 copies.

[5] Rush had worked on new material as early as February 2009, but Alex Lifeson denied a speculation that they were set to make a concept album at that time.

[8][9][10] 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.

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.

[5] 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".

[5] 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.

[11] With the first half of the Time Machine Tour finished, Lee and Lifeson resumed to write the rest of the album in early 2011, but the sessions had not produced strong enough results barring some "furious jams" that became the basis of "Carnies" and "Headlong Flight".

The first took place in April 2010 at Blackbird Studios in Nashville, Tennessee with Nick Raskulinecz returning as co-producer following his work on Snakes & Arrows (2007).

[3][5] The band's initial plan was to return to the studio at the conclusion of the Time Machine Tour in October 2010 and have the album finished for a 2011 release.

[5] On his personal website, Peart revealed that he took a new approach in writing and recording his drum tracks for the album:[20] I played through each song just a few times on my own, checking out patterns and fills that might work, then called in Booujzhe.

No counting, and no endless repetition.On February 9, 2012, science fiction novelist Kevin J. Anderson, a longtime friend of Neil Peart, announced that he would be writing a novelization of Clockwork Angels.

He also revealed information about the album's concept:[21] In a young man's quest to follow his dreams, he is caught between the grandiose forces of order and chaos.

He travels across a lavish and colorful world of steampunk and alchemy, with lost cities, pirates, anarchists, exotic carnivals, and a rigid Watchmaker who imposes precision on every aspect of daily life.Released on September 4, 2012, the novel was followed by a loose sequel titled Clockwork Lives, which was published on September 15, 2015, followed by a graphic novel in 2018.

The album's front cover, designed by Rush's longtime collaborator Hugh Syme, depicts a clock marked with alchemical symbols instead of numbers.

[41] Jamie Thompson of The Guardian wrote in his review that "those who worship at the temple of Rush will be in raptures; for those who remain agnostic, there may well be enough here to justify a leap of faith".

All lyrics are written by Neil Peart[43]; all music is composed by Geddy Lee and Alex LifesonCredits adapted from the album's liner notes.