Fly by Night by Rush

Fly by Night, Rush's second album, arrived in February 1975, and it's where the Toronto trio starts turning into the band the world came to know. Neil Peart had taken over the drums from John Rutsey the previous summer, just before their first North American tour, and he brought a pen along with his sticks: as the new chief lyricist, he traded the plain hard rock of the debut for fantasy and philosophy.

Alex Lifeson's guitar still slashes and Geddy Lee's bass still rumbles, but the songs start to sprawl into progressive territory for the first time, and the band produced it themselves. America barely noticed, with the record stalling at number 113 on the Billboard 200, but it went to number 9 at home, and the title song finally found its legs when it was put out again as a single in 1976.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.