Rush reached 1976 with two albums that had stalled outside the top half of the Billboard 200 and a label waiting on something friendlier. The band handed in a twenty minute science fiction suite that fills the whole of side one.

Geddy Lee, Alex Lifeson and Neil Peart build that suite as linked movements rather than verses and choruses, and they play all of it as a three piece, with Lee carrying the bass and the high vocal line at the same time. The parts interlock instead of backing each other, which is why listeners still argue over whether the record sits at the far edge of progressive rock or the front edge of progressive metal. Side two drops the story and runs shorter songs, closer to the hard rock the three of them could throw at a club crowd.

Mercury put the album out in March 1976. It climbed to number five in Canada and number sixty one in the United States, the first real commercial success Rush had after Fly by Night and Caress of Steel underperformed, and it has sold steadily in every decade since. Fans have kept a cult around it that whole time. Come to it for progressive rock that hits hard, carries a narrative across twenty minutes and stays loud about it.