The searing compressed punch of Signals is the overlap of the two decades that are my musical youth.įates Warning is-alongside Queensrÿche and Dream Theater-one of the “big three” of progressive metal, a genre that took the complex compositional aesthetic of progressive rock and played it through walls of distorted metal guitar sounds. The focused bass still growls, the guitars are all telegraphed emotion, and Neil Peart, RIP, plays drums like a lead instrument. The production on Signals is painstaking but comparatively spare and there are keyboards all over where they shouldn’t be. This was written at the height of Rush’s fame and power, but they chose to make an album that neither fans of their 1970s proggy indulgence ( Hemispheres) nor converts to their improbably pop-infused muscular rock ( Spirit of Radio) would love. Mostly optimism prevails here, but it is a titanic struggle. My favorite record by my favorite band, it reached my imprintable psyche with the most adherent narrative drama: the toil of optimism against dispossession, meaninglessness, and the sense that the world had already turned the corner toward oblivion. This has more or less been on my heavy rotation list since the year it came out. Growing up, I played electric bass in prog metal, blues, and funk bands. When I see live music, what I hope for most is that the performance sounds exactly like the recorded version, especially if that’s exceedingly hard to do. My tastes are, I’m told, an eccentric orbit around black metal, progressive metal, opera, Broadway show tunes, early hip-hop, and commercial pop with women singers (Taylor Swift, JLo, The Veronicas, Julieta Venegas, and, of course, the queen herself, Avril).

My notes on the records I’m spinning these days indicate something of the music I like.

Without further ado, here are the albums that are currently in our heavy rotations, accompanied by some thoughts on each and a short playlist to give you a sense of their sounds. Taken together, it runs the gamut from classical, to indie rock, to black metal, to electronic, and a little bit of everything in between. We hope you find something new to enjoy in this compilation of our editors’ favorite albums of the moment. One such passion that unites us is music, and today we’re sharing a taste of the tunes that are playing behind the scenes while we’re working, riding, and relaxing. But as part of developing our community here on the site, we also want to share more of what excites us beyond the world of bikes. Earlier this year, we offered up our bike industry predictions for 2021. Last year, we shared our favorite bikepacking films and travel stories of all time.

Deathmetal gravel