Rush fan that she is, Beth Patterson couldn’t resist making the cover of her singles collection a sendup/homage to the prog trio’s pivotal album Signals. Like her Canadian brethren, she turns up both ambitious and accessible this time out. Originally released as a couple songs as a time on Bandcamp, this set plays like a map to her own musical subdivisions.

This is more of a rock album than anything else she’s recorded, but her version of rock is proggy and eclectic, with room for the Celtic trad and lyrical acoustic music she’s done in the past—and her bouzouki holds its own as the lead instrument in an electric band. She can get as heavy as “Matchstick,” double-bass drum finale and all, or as jangly as “Return to Our Caves.” The latter is as uplifting a song about the COVID shutdown can get, and it’s further Beatlle-ized by a guest appearance from current Yes bassist Billy Sherwood. “Heat” and “Digging Up My Bones” are both richly arranged tracks—the first is a fantasy scenario, the second a real-life lyric about intense therapy—but the strength of her vocals and melodies never gets overwhelmed.

The covers here began as hard rock tunes, but they don’t always end up that way. A solo acoustic “Wasted Years” finds the melancholy at the heart of Iron Maiden’s bluster. “My Pal Foot Foot” by the Shaggs (search Google if you don’t know of them) becomes a relatively straightforward pop tune that the kids can sing along with. The Rush cover, “Red Lenses,” is a neat bit of alchemy: recorded with Johnny Sketch & the Dirty Notes, it injects some New Orleans funk while honoring the twists and turns of the Rush arrangement. Most surprising is “Air Dance,” which comes off as folk mystery with Gothic overtones—and yes, it’s a Black Sabbath song. She doesn’t really change the mood of the Sabbath original, just heightens it, and her voice has a spectral quality here that wasn’t quite in Ozzy’s wheelhouse.

What anyone who knows Patterson may be missing at this point is an example of her offbeat sense of humor. Fear not, that arrives on the bonus track—which you should take care to listen to with someone you feel comfortable calling “butt-face.”