Whether it comes down to talent, musical choices, or the genius of their management, Rush continues to pull off an inspired feat:  embedding themselves in the rock mainstream while maintaining a reputation as music biz outsiders and, deceptively, cultural dark horses.  It’s a trick most rock and punk bands would kill for and it actually does come down to a question of honesty.  Rush never cared about being one of the cool kids and guess what, turns out the world’s not made up of cool kids after all.  And those un-cool kids want to see their band live.

Based on the evidence of Rush’s officially released live catalog, you’d be hard pressed to find a better, or better-documented, live “stadium” rock band.  For its consistent onstage delivery the band itself credits its grind in the clubs of Toronto in the early 1970s.  As that decade wore on and they began writing increasingly complex studio material, their live shows became acrobatic technical workouts showcasing tremendous talent (and perhaps some excess too).  But when they first started touring in support of studio albums, their music and their onstage act fit somewhere between Humble Pie, Led Zeppelin, and Ted Nugent.

Rush: ABC 1974 captures the band in Cleveland on its first American tour, with a few bonus tracks, also from Cleveland, the following year.  The shows are notable because they were recorded by WMMS, famously instrumental in builiding Rush’s career, and also because the show in August 1974 was the first U.S. broadcast of the band.  More importantly, though, the ’74 show includes new drummer Neil Peart.  It’s something of an awkward moment:  Rush’s first album is a riff metal powerhouse, anchored by drummer John Rutsey’s straight ahead hard rock pounding and suggesting as much Black Sabbath as Led Zeppelin.  Peart’s still finding his feet on this set, busy-ing up songs that maybe can’t sustain his presence.  Still, given they’re from the band’s early days as professionals, the performances are outstanding, with early album hit “Working Man” the obvious crowd pleaser and “What You’re Doing” as mind-bendingly great a piece of stoner rock live as on record.  The duds are all songs Rush wisely never put on an album and a cover of “Bad Boy” that doesn’t really go anywhere.  The three bonus tracks from 1975 suffer from poor audio quality while offering a glimpse of Fly By Night.  That title track, the first real success of Rush mach II, bristles with their new sound, and is genuinely exciting to hear despite the muddy recording.  The other songs from Fly By Night (including Anthem and Beneath, Between, and Behind) also distinguish themselves by containing an energy of a sort entirely different, as well as a lyrical focus stretching beyond the rock tropes that characterize Rush’s first.  It’s pretty clear that the band has re-set its course.

I can’t tell you what the deal is with this record, if Rush actually has any say over its release or not, but there’s nothing here that doesn’t speak well of the band in its formative days; and, if you’re a fan of that era, then the heaviosity on display in Cleveland in ‘74 is pretty much guaranteed to take you to church.

Year-end best-of lists are a drag.  Right? Day after Christmas, look out.  Flip channels from one mega news station to another and you’ll get some dude(tte) with a list.  Well, look no further than Progarchy for the same schlockfest.  Because that’s what it is.  There’s a great line from John Le Carre’s The Russia House: “I don’t like lists. Lists tell you too much about the people who make them.”  And it’s true.  So before I get on with it, expose my short list, know this: I make no assumption that it should have any meaning for you.  I would like to send a thanks to my kids, 7 and 9, for insisting we listen to pop radio in the car, for I have found some true and unexpected pleasure there this year, in Lorde and Hozier and Pharrell Williams.

III by Mariachi El Bronx
I’m not going to eff around and pretend that I can construct a reason that Mariachi El Bronx’s latest could be considered progressive music, but consider: the alter ego of L.A. punk band the Bronx, MEB makes original, poppy, mariachi-style music sung in English.  It is a sincere mashup of styles that could easily come off as kitsch, but avoids that pitfall with serious musicianship, lyrical directness, and a genuine love for the music they fuse.  Their third full length is something of a leap, approaching a breezy grittiness, its horns, strings, and vox raising Arthur Lee’s ghost.

Arktika by Pelican
If you haven’t had a chance to hear John Bassett’s Arcade Messiah project, you should give it a listen.  It’s a fine instrumental record from the genius behind King Bathmat and an edgier, heavier complement to Bassett’s more sublime “Unearth.”  Arcade Messiah led me back to Pelican, who I’d listened to long ago on the recommendation of the tattoo artist who first inked me.  Arktika is a live recording that captures Pelican’s mojo: layers of instrumental metal with a live, dirty approach masking mammoth structures.

Demon by Gazpacho
Demon is the most important album in a long time.  It’s a sleeper, a heavy record full of light, melodically beautiful in its moody shadows.  It defies genres.  From its basic concept to its execution, it is unequalled by anything else that came out this year and in most other years.  Its day in the sun is not done.
Reviewed here

Iceberg Soul by newspaperflyhunting
A tremendous album from a Polish band who builds songs out of jams in the grand tradition of krautrock and the Velvet Underground, Iceberg Soul is a mind blower that could school a lot of more experienced prog bands in the art of messiness.  Makes me thankful for the reach of the internet.
Reviewed here

Garden of Ghosts by Fractal Mirror
An unexpected pleasure, Garden of Ghosts shows the value of looking back while moving forward, both musically and lyrically.  Combining the sound of classic new wave melodies — check “House of Wishes,” which kicks off the album, for its rich suggestion of Modern English — and progressive rock flourishes, Fractal Mirror has a sound that I look forward to exploring further in 2015.

Lullaby and…the Ceaseless Roar by Robert Plant
What I like about Robert Plant is that he’s a mover.  Having been a part of the mighty Zep, he could easily let that continue to define him, and while he doesn’t shrug his heritage off, his solo records have always worked against the grain while showing his aesthetic contribution to his former band came from deep springs. His latest album is really nice, and suggests in its laid back daring a smoothness that wouldn’t be out of place on a Bryan Ferry record.

City of the Sun by Seven Impale
As if Sonny Sharrock rather than Robert Fripp steered King Crimson.  Seven Impale bring the heavy jazz, their modal metal killing it, without a whiff of any wankery shenanigans.
Reviewed here