As I’m sitting here, in the coolest part of the evening, writing another review and replaying both Marvel Cosmic Invasion and Mouse: P.I. For Hire on my beloved XBOX, I always find myself deep into the wonders more and more of Crown Lands’ music as they find themselves back into the progressive voyages with a full-length cannon blast that’s waiting to happen.
For 11 years, the fellow Canadian duo has always taken up the challenge of not just carrying on Rush’s legacy but coming up with surprises, one album after another. So far, the band has unleashed two studio albums: their self-titled 2020 debut and 2023’s Fearless, followed by several EPs such as Mantra, Wayward Flyers, and the instrumental EP released last year, Ritual I & II. You never know what to expect or what would happen next for them.
Now, in the year of our lord 2026, the band are coming back swinging by going from ambient into the storytelling prog-metallic flight of fancy with their third studio album, Apocalypse. Released on the InsideOut label, Apocalypse is the imaginative movie viewed inside your head as if the duo had written a story for the adult illustrated fantasy magazine Heavy Metal (Metal Hurlant).
Believe me, Crown Lands can really write their own comic book by creating their own stories when it comes to an album like Apocalypse. ‘Foot Soldiers of the Syndicate’ gives us an insight into drawing into the NWOBHM movement, down into Iron Maiden’s territory with blistering riffs, chants, and skull-crushing blasts of rock and roll with its 1980s sound coming into the forefront.
More of its cavernous arrangements, ‘Through the Looking Glass,’ which takes its nod from Lewis Carroll’s Alice Through the Looking Glass, is a suitable yet eerie walk across the bloody aftermath of war into this darkened sky with its brutal guitar awakening and crying out to the gods as the battle prepares for another war happening in front of our eyes on ‘Blackstar’.
The more dystopian worlds Crown Lands delves into, the more we have a bit of an understanding of Ayn Rand’s and Orwell’s vision that we are living in when the world came to a screeching halt during the pandemic six years ago. And the more that ‘The Fall’ encounters its pouncing sequences, the more the uplifting harmonies; Cody puts his heart into the song as Comeau pours his heart into his multi-instrumental task.
After going through the heaviest of all heavy tracks in the first five compositions, Comeau brings out his acoustic guitar for ‘The Revenants’, detailing this Italian-like spaghetti western in the middle of Almeria, Spain, as Bowles rides into the coldness, taking the torch by carrying on where the Man with No Name had left for him to follow in his footsteps, and never knowing if he’s going to survive or go out in a blaze of glory.
Now, we come to the 19-minute epic of all epics, the closing title track. Here, they deliver the carte blanche, revealing the end of the world in all of its madness. Thanks to its Moog-like intro, rumbling drum intro, overture-like guitar chords, and the nightmare that’s about to unfold. Almost for a brief moment, I had this feeling that it’s a nod to Aphrodite’s Child’s 666.
But once Crown Lands walks into Rush’s territory during the 2112 period, you know they’re getting down to business and showing all the ingredients of prog in its true glory. As I’ve mentioned earlier about spaghetti westerns in the mid-to-late ‘60s, well, this track fits the bill as if the duo had written this piece for Sergio Leone during the New Hollywood era, proving that rock music can easily fit the atmosphere for Clint Eastwood’s main character for the westerns.
Once the heaviness and rumbling tidal wave starts riding in, Crown Lands shows us metallic forces in its growling and soaring energy, back and forth like it’s heading into the stop-and-go momentum. That’s where the good gets even better! Now, you may think they’re nods to Rush, which is true, but I won’t go into that, because that would be too much of a cop-out.
You can hear elements of Italian-based prog group Unreal City, the Lizard era from King Crimson, Premiata Forneria Marconi, Beardfish, Van der Graaf Generator, and Gentle Giant rolled into one delicious Canadian smoothie that you need to strengthen your body and exercise like a mo-fo! Apocalypse speaks with wisdom and power to prove how amazing this group has been around by keeping our spirits alive. And yet, 11 years since their formation, we hope they continue to come up with more incredible music.
