CROWN LANDS – Apocalypse

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• Bands:
  CROWN LANDS
• Duration: 00:42:28
• Available from: 05/15/2026
• Label:

• Inside Out

Crown Lands are a Canadian progressive hard rock duo, strongly indebted to the music of sacred monsters of the national scene such as Rush and Triumph and, like these bands, deeply devoted to Led Zeppelin. Active for about a decade, they have built a discography dotted with EPs, singles, a live album and three full-lengths which have progressively consolidated their reputation as an excellent live band and capable experimenters in the recording studio.
After using the two instrumental EPs “Ritual I” And “Ritual II” as a creative laboratory to explore more atmospheric and contemplative territories, between world music suggestions and atmospheres inspired by Native American traditions, the Canadians return to more robust sounds with “Apocalypse”third studio album and first published for InsideOut which finally guarantees them a distribution worthy of the name also in Europe.
The work arrives at a particularly interesting phase in the artistic career of drummer and singer Cody Bowles and multi-instrumentalist Kevin Comeau. From the very beginning, Crown Lands had to live with the inevitable comparison with Rush, a consequence of their common Canadian origin, small lineup and some obvious stylistic affinities. Yet, if references to the great hard-progressive tradition of the Seventies continue to characterize their proposal, in “Apocalypse”, as we will see, there are some new features that demonstrate how the two young artists, although determined to pursue the path outlined, have undertaken a path of identity construction that has not been so evident until now.

“Apocalypse”, in fact, strips away most of the trappings that had characterized not only the two aforementioned EPs, but also the previous album “Fearless”favoring a more direct and aggressive approach. The keyboards move back significantly, the guitars return to the center and the entire work seems to look back to Rush from the “2112” period, without giving up the melodic vein that has always distinguished the Canadian duo. Bowles' vocal performance also appears more intense and combative, helping to give the album a rougher and more muscular character than in the recent past and sometimes, rather than recalling Geddy Lee, it seems to reach sharper and more scathing territories, almost in the style of Axl Rose or Tom Keifer of Cinderella.

The short “Proclamation I”, an introduction of just over a minute built on solemn keyboards and almost cinematic atmospheres, acts as a springboard for “Foot Soldiers Of The Syndicate”, probably – together with “The Fall” – the most immediate song of the entire work.
A listener approaching Crown Lands for the first time could easily grasp its essence precisely through this episode: robust and open riffs, built on chords that explore the entire sound spectrum of the instrument in full Jimmy Page style, tight rhythms and an attitude that looks both to classic hard rock and to the progressive of the first Rush and Triumph of “Just A Game” and “Progressions Of Power”, managing to condense most of the characteristics of the album within a relatively compact structure.
Great performance energy, melodies always in the foreground and considerable care in the arrangements coexist without showing friction, the same can be said of the subsequent “Through The Looking Glass”, built around one of the best vocal lines of the entire work and characterized by a melodic taste that recalls both classic British rock and certain solutions typical of American hard rock of the Seventies, from Aerosmith to Montrose.
“Blackstar” further raises the level thanks to a particularly effective refrain and guitar work capable of highlighting the maturity reached by Kevin Comeau as a composer, capable – here more than in the past – of reducing the riff to its essential elements without depriving it of its expressive and communicative strength.

“The Fall”, however, deserves a separate discussion: not only does it represent one of the most balanced episodes of the album, managing to naturally merge all the souls of Crown Lands, but it also shows a further aspect, that is, that compositional fluidity that recalls that of the great rock groups of the Seventies when they began to appear in the Eighties, managing, in many cases, to keep their identity intact but at the same time developing a greater melodic sensitivity.
The result is a surprisingly accessible song, almost chart-topping by the band's standards, but without this involving any renunciation or compromise on an artistic level. The chorus is imprinted in the memory after a few listens, while the arrangements continue to reveal details and nuances capable of testifying to the high level of writing achieved by the Canadian duo.
If there is a song capable of projecting Crown Lands beyond the circle of progressive hard rock enthusiasts, it is probably this.

“The Revenants I” intervenes as a bridge towards the monumental finale, an acoustic ballad with folk and dreamy tones that momentarily puts aside the aggression of the previous songs. The comparison with Greta Van Fleet comes almost spontaneously: the ability to recover the language of classic rock without falling into a simple nostalgic exercise, together with the declared love for Led Zeppelin and for the great American hard rock tradition ranging from Aerosmith to Pavlov's Dog, brings us closer to the group of the Kiszka brothers, among the most talented standard bearers of contemporary mainstream hard rock in the Western world.

The epic of “Apocalypse”, the final suite and now an inevitable moment in the Canadian duo's full-lengths – just think of the long composition that largely occupied side A of “Fearless” – probably represents the definitive artistic consecration of ours. More than on the brainy harmonic progressions typical of certain progressive rock, the song is based on a continuous escalation of atmospheres, riffs and melodic sections that fit naturally into each other. The acoustic parts, the guitars full of reverbs and flangers, the sudden accelerations and the frequent dynamic changes contribute to building a real sonic journey which finds its strong point in the ability to constantly keep the narrative tension and the musical story alive.
In this sense, the final crescendo recalls that of the more epic Magnums, the more theatrical Savatages and even the more prog Queens of the early days, demonstrating how Bowles and Comeau have now reached a notable awareness of their potential and of the vision to impart to their music to guide their creation to the next stage.

With “Apocalypse” Crown Lands probably sign the most complete and convincing work of their career because, without getting lost in the digressions that had characterized the two recent instrumental EPs, it lays bare all the souls of the band, highlighting its melodic, compositional and interpretative qualities in the best possible way.
A record that speaks to fans of classic progressive rock without turning into a mere nostalgic exercise and which confirms the Canadian duo as one of the most interesting and credible realities of the current progressive hard rock panorama.
Songs like “Blackstar” and especially “The Fall” also give a glimpse of a future in which Crown Lands could find their own “Age Of Man” (the famous song by Greta Van Fleet), that is, that great song capable of transcending the niche of fans and becoming the soundtrack of a new generation of listeners and fans of the great rock groups of the past who see worthy and respectful heirs in new generations like Crown Lands.