Rush - Farewell To The Kings (40th Anniversary 4LP)

Rush's 5th studio album has been long considered a landmark release, showing an already curious international audience that the trio were capable of a focused outing as essential as Yes's 'Fragile', Led Zeppelin's 'Houses of the Holy' , and Jethro Tull's 'Aqualung', to name three. The musical risks taken on their previous album, '2112', paid off - their audience had developed beyond their straight-ahead hard-rock beginnings and embraced the band's unique, grandiose approach to creating pieces that balance progressive song structures with heavy metal bombast.