For Fans of Rush

Everyone points newcomers at 2112 because it is the monument, the statement of purpose. But Moving Pictures is where the progressive architecture, the pop songwriting, and the thunderous playing all arrive in the same place at once, compressed into something tight and purposeful. 'Tom Sawyer' alone contains more ideas per minute than most bands manage across an album. Start here, then work backward and forward.

Signals, Grace Under Pressure, and Power Windows were the records that divided the fanbase when they arrived. Forty years later they sound like a band at the peak of their compositional ambition, not selling out but genuinely exploring. The textures are colder, the grooves tighter, and Peart's lyrics are some of his most considered. If you have written these records off as the awkward phase, go back.

Clockwork Angels arrived in 2012, forty years into the band's career, and it is by any honest measure one of their best records. A genuine concept album about a young man's journey through a steampunk world, it does everything Rush always promised: the musicianship is extraordinary, the story holds together, and the production sounds alive rather than polished to nothing. Most bands at that point in a career are coasting. Rush made something new.