Crown Lands go all in with their evocative space opera story with the biggest album release out of Toronto this month, Apocalypse.
Release date: May 15, 2026 | InsideOutMusic | Facebook | Instagram | TikTok | Bandcamp
Crown Lands have the important distinction for being one of the most adventurous bands in classically-aligned progressive rock right now. Obviously the name of the game in prog rock is adventure, and many do it to a formidable degree, but this particular Canadian duo have a full-send attitude about it. They bring to mind the GOATs of the game Rush of course, but also more contemporary standard-bearers Coheed and Cambria even if their attention to prog-ass prog rock has absolutely waned in the last decade-ish.
Add on that Crown Lands have been weaving their own space opera tale of evil and a hero’s rebellion against it across albums and the comparisons draw closer. But here’s the thing, as much as I don’t mind providing those analogues so new people can find some sort of bearing before even hitting play, like most situations, it doesn’t tell the full story. There’s something special and exceptionally fun with how Crown Lands operate in this lane that makes it so I’m always excited for a new project of theirs. Their versatility is also telling of the exemplary musicianship that Kevin Comeau and Cody Bowles combine together.
Apocalypse is the amalgamation of prog rock wonder and large arena rock ferocity, all upon the stage of its greater story which is a warning sign to us all. It’s about the uprising of the Syndicate, a turbo technocracy waging war for resources and profit across the galaxy. I’ll pause for a second so you can think of something, or someplace, this sounds like – there’s many choices. Planets are bled dry, people are killed, even the sun of a solar system is absorbed for energy (please don’t get any ideas, Western imperialism). Anything for the Syndicate, and, as the story unfortunately goes in Apocalypse, whatever they want, they get. But that does come with one caveat: they reap what they sow, a full-circle completion of hate begetting hate and even oppressors aren’t exempt from that in the end.
That doesn’t mean this story has a happy ending, it actually doesn’t much like our own currently doesn’t have one in sight. This album, while upbeat and raucous more often than not, is tinged with the weight of growing fascism and subjugation. To that end, “Foot Soldier of the Syndicate” is the most rocking song about oppression I’ve heard in quite a while. It summons the ’80s with driving riffing and bold bass work from Comeau as Bowles puts their entire power behind soaring vocals and multifaceted drumming. The song is honest with a certain aspect of fascism that is often overlooked: even the doers and pawns enacting it at the lowest levels are disposable by an empire. They don’t matter just as much as they were told the people they oppress didn’t matter.
“Through The Looking Glass” is the precursor of rebellion against the Syndicate in the form of fabled royal dragon riders called the Ebonflight who will soon engage in great, albeit doomed battle. It’s a beautiful song that evokes the exhilaration that one might get if they were flying through boundless skies on a dragon with the use of acoustic guitars and big hooks. “Blackstar”, named after the prime antagonist of this story, is a another big rock number that conveys the violent exploits of the character. It’s as good of a theme song someone as evil as him could ask for even if it’s more jubilant and exciting that it may need to be for that purpose.
Crown Lands give us more ballad-seated rock than before with “The Fall” and “The Revenants I”, both of which are synth-bathed, touching affairs about the more personal cost of war and terror with love cut short and the souls of the lost crying out. I love the post-chorus melodies on “The Fall”, one of the best segments on Apocalypse, and Bowles’ vocals shine the brightest on “The Revenants I” as they use more breathy restraint to go with the emotion of the track. Really, Bowles does incredible vocal work across all of Apocalypse, ricocheting between the timbre of someone like Robert Plant over to Red Rider‘s Peter Boynton, who is also from Toronto in Canada.
The title track is massively epic, the only complaint I have of it is that it should not have been a single especially as it’s the climax of the album and its story. Overlooking that, it’s a 19-minute multi-part suite that brings an end to the beginning started back on “The Oracle” from Crown Lands‘ White Buffalo album in 2022 and continued throughout their 2023 album Fearless, also the name of the primary protagonist in this story. The motifs and musicality on “Apocalypse” can’t help but bring to mind the greatness of Rush‘s “2112” suite. It has barren breaks in the progressive action, fluttering rock that instills a kineticism to the whole track which is important with its length, and reverb-drenched passages that tickle the brain. When it dropped as a single, I must’ve ran through it three whole times – an hour total – before moving on with my day. It was and remains so captivating of a song that it could have easily been its own EP with all the places it goes and all it achieved sonically with just about every type of instrument you can imagine short of brass horns.
Although not every piece of Crown Lands‘ music is as explicitly entrenched in this story of Fearless versus the Syndicate, it all has built on itself over time. As a quick but related aside, last year, they dropped two instrumental projects, Ritual I and Ritual II, focusing heavily on folk and tribal aspects that occasionally can be found in the margins of their more traditional rock music. Following those up with Apocalypse may not sound like the natural progression you’d expect – it’s not, I guess – but it’s indicative of the stories they want to tell, how they as a duo engage with music, and their origins as people and artists. Not every story needs lyrics or a grandiose arc to matter, sometimes all it needs is the feeling of unity and togetherness, and any threat against that is cause for a call to action. That’s what Apocalypse is in this grander picture.
This is all why Crown Lands have earned their station among progressive rock greats, modern or otherwise. I remember hearing Fearless a few years ago for the first time and being enamored with the fact that a duo could be so bold as to invoke the legends of the genre, but still more than capable of coloring the in-between with something different, evocative, and just plain cool. I listen to less prog rock lately for no reason in particular other than different genres demand attention at different times, but Crown Lands will always demand my attention because they make music with soul, uncaring of much else but expression itself.
