Hemispheres by Rush

Hemispheres, Rush's sixth studio album, arrived in October 1978 on Anthem in Canada and Mercury everywhere else, and it's the sound of three Canadians pushing prog rock as far as their fingers would go. Geddy Lee, Alex Lifeson and Neil Peart went back to Rockfield Studios in Wales with co-producer Terry Brown, but this time without finished songs, writing and arranging on the clock for weeks. It wore them out.

Side one is all 18 minutes of "Cygnus X-1 Book II: Hemispheres", picking up the black-hole cliff-hanger from A Farewell to Kings and dropping its space traveler into a tug-of-war between Apollo and Dionysus, a split that Hugh Syme's cover art puts on display. Side two tightens up with "Circumstances" and "The Trees", which got them onto FM radio, before the closing instrumental "La Villa Strangiato" ties the trio in knots for nearly ten minutes. Afterward the exhausted band went shorter and sharper on Permanent Waves.

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