Great, but not avant-garde!

I'm a big Rush fan and keep the band in many respects unique, especially As for their individual style and their high level of 1977-1988, a period in which so many other old hard rock band no longer existed or just even third-rate produced. What Rush 1976, but not (yet), is progressive, in the sense of avant-garde. There are at 2112 soundwise, structurally and stylistically nothing new, nothing that would have had not tried King Crimson, The Who, Yes, among other things already years earlier. Even Rush see themselves in this time clearly as epigones of Led Zep and Who. In my view, it took a few more years until Rush really found to himself, namely Permanent Waves, which then ushered in the heyday of the band: Moving Pictures, signal, Grace Under Pressure, etc. Let us take the use of keyboards: who was with The Who with "Will not get fooled again" already in the early seventies, radical and progressive (for a rock band). But The Who had then just not much to offer in the 80s.
2112 is concerning the sound not as fat as you would perhaps like to have, Rush played the songs at lower altitudes later, nevertheless the album for Rush ratios is quite tough and aggressive, just more traditional rock and not as dodgy and (yes) pop like the songs from the heyday. "Passage to Bangkok" like live much better ("Exit ... Stage Left").