"In The End", from their second album “Fly By Night”, has always been one of my favorite “hard rocking” Rush tunes.
Progressive hard rock sounds fair.
To add to the metal discussion:
A lot of the bands that were considered metal in the early or mid-70s–Led Zeppelin, Aerosmith and Deep Purple are the most obvious–would not be considered metal today since we’ve been through Iron Maiden and Judas Priest. Rush fits pretty comfortably in that category, I’d say.
Well, Rush is certainly of the Led Zeppelin school, and that put them in within the framework of what was defined as Heavy Metal in the 70’s and early 80’s. After that, the goalposts of what constituted metal moved in one direction while Rush moved in another, but they always retained an element of it in their toolbox.
Y’see, I’m just not comfortable with that ‘progressive’ label. It, unfortunately, drops them in with bands like ‘Yes’ and ‘King Crimson’.
And, well, Rush eats those bands for lunch.
I think that maybe I resist labeling Rush as metal because I didn’t know about those '70s bands (Zeppelin, Rush, Deep Purple) until the other bands (Maiden, Priest) were around. My music appreciation came in fits and starts, so I got into Iron Maiden in high school (mid-to-late 80s) but didn’t appreciate Rush until college (early 90s). Maybe that also explains why I like Yes. :eek: 
Whatever genre Rush fits into, I love that band. 
No, no, you got it all rong. Those bands are prog rock, while Rush is prog hard rock. There’s a difference, see?
Seriously, progressive rock encompasses a lot of different styles. The fact that King Crimson and Yes are the first bands that come to mind doesn’t discount that a lot of other bands, some of whom don’t sound like either of those two, also fit in there.