There are two reviews for this album, the first is mine and the second is by Now Spinning Magazine contributer ‘Mike Bruce’ (Yes it’s that good!)
A modern progressive rock epic that feels like a lost classic from another timeline
This was my first proper encounter with the band, and I came to it through the vinyl edition on InsideOut Music — complete with lyrics, concept-album storytelling, and a rather lovely translucent green pressing. From the outset, this feels like an album designed to be played properly: side one, side two, no skipping, no dipping in and out. This is active listening music. Put it on, pour yourself a cup of tea, sit back and let it unfold.
Crown Lands are a Canadian progressive rock duo formed in 2015, featuring Cody Bowles on vocals, drums, percussion and flutes, and Kevin Comeau on guitars, bass, keyboards, bass pedals and Mellotron-style textures. The remarkable thing is that Apocalypse sounds like the work of a much larger ensemble, yet this huge, cinematic, multi-layered world is created by just two musicians. Recent credits list Bowles on vocals, drums, percussion, ney flute and pentatonic flute, while Comeau handles six and twelve-string electric and acoustic guitars, bass, MiniMoog, Oberheim OB6, Taurus pedals and Mellotron.
The band have been building a reputation as one of the most ambitious modern progressive rock acts, with their self-titled debut, Fearless, and the more experimental Ritual I & II all forming part of their wider musical journey. Apocalypse, released on 15 May 2026 via InsideOut Music, continues their science-fiction narrative and has been described as a prequel to Fearless, connecting back into the band’s long-form “Fearless chronology”.
But let’s get to what matters most: what does it feel like when the needle drops?
The opening piece, “Proclamation I”, is brief but important. At just over a minute, it sets the scene with layers of voices and atmosphere. It immediately tells you that you are in concept-album territory. This is not background music. This is Crown Lands opening the gates.
Then comes “Foot Soldiers Of The Syndicate”, and if you love mid-70s Rush, you will almost certainly feel at home. The riffs, the stop-start arrangements, the high vocals, the sense of drama — it all points towards that golden era of progressive hard rock. But what impressed me is that the album does not simply stay there. It uses those influences as a launchpad. The guitar sound has that traditional rock feel where you can still hear the strings, the amp, the physicality of the playing. It does not disappear under layers of processed modern metal distortion. It breathes.
“Through The Looking Glass” brings in a different shade. There is acoustic picking, power chords, reverb-drenched vocals and a sense of soaring angst. Cody Bowles’ voice may lead some people straight to Geddy Lee comparisons, and that is understandable, but I also hear flashes of Lenny Wolf from Kingdom Come, perhaps even Burke Shelley from Budgie. There is a Led Zeppelin-esque edge in places too, but again, it never feels like imitation. It feels like two musicians taking the things they love and building something of their own.
“Blackstar” is one of my favourite tracks on the album. It is more direct, more four-four, more immediate, but the bass runs and drum patterns keep it alive and unpredictable. The chorus is superb. This is the kind of track that makes me think of being a late teenager, coming home from working in a factory on a Friday, wages in my pocket, buying an album because I had seen it reviewed in Sounds and people were talking about it in the pub. If Apocalypse had appeared in 1976, everyone would have owned it. It would have been one of those records passed from friend to friend, played at rock clubs, argued about, absorbed.
That is not to say it sounds old. It sounds modern in production, but spiritually connected to that period when albums felt like events.
“The Fall” is another huge moment. The guitar figure has a definite kinship with David Gilmour’s “Run Like Hell”, but Crown Lands take it somewhere else through the arrangement and scale of the song. It becomes vast, almost mountainous. The chorus is huge, and the guitar solo has that “played from the top of a mountain” quality — gallons of space, echo and drama.
Then “The Revenants I” pulls everything back. Acoustic guitar, sparse beginnings, a lone vocal, and then layers building into something lush and emotional. It feels like a ballad, but not in the lighter-waving sense. It has atmosphere and texture, and vocally it is one of the album’s most impressive moments.
Side two belongs to the 19-minute title track, “Apocalypse”.
This is where Crown Lands go all in. Church bells in the mist, synths, power chords, progressive storytelling, flutes, shifting sections, huge riffs, softer passages, heavy passages, and a climax that feels properly earned. There are moments that made me think of Yes, early Dream Theater, Rush, Zeppelin’s Achilles Last Stand, even a kind of heavy Genesis if Genesis had turned the guitars up and let Steve Hackett loose in a more metallic landscape.
The flute section is important too. If you are going to tip your hat to 70s progressive rock, you need a flute somewhere. That is the law.
What I love about the title track is its sense of movement. It does not just sit in one place. It travels across a landscape. There are riffs that walk through the music, vocal layers that rise and fall, and sections that seem to open out into space. It will be fascinating to see how they approach this live, because there are only two of them. But that is not the point when making a record like this. You make the best album you can make. You build the world first. The live challenge comes later.
And that, for me, is part of why Apocalypse works. It feels ambitious in the old-fashioned sense. Not retro. Not nostalgic. Ambitious. It wants to be big. It wants to tell a story. It wants you to listen to the whole thing. It wants to take rock music seriously without draining it of excitement.
Yes, there are obvious reference points: Rush, Zeppelin, Yes, Dream Theater, Pink Floyd, Rainbow, Genesis. But this is not an album trapped in the past. It is a reminder that progressive rock can still be thrilling, dramatic, melodic and physical. It can still bring in new listeners. It can still make a young fan feel like they have discovered something important.
That is what excites me most about Apocalypse. For all the references I have made to the 1970s, this is not just music for people who were there. This is the kind of album that could send a new listener backwards into Rush, Yes, Rainbow or Zeppelin, while also making them feel that rock music is alive right now.
Crown Lands have made a record that sounds like an event. A proper concept album. Dragons, galactic empires, destruction, resistance, flutes, riffs, huge vocals, melodic guitar solos and a 19-minute epic on side two. What more could you want?
ORDER CROWN LANDS APOCALYPSE ON CD
ORDER CROWN LANDS APOCALYPSE ON VINYL
Apocalypse is absolutely fantastic. A new classic? I think it might be.
Phil Aston
Crown Lands – Apocalypse : Review by Mike Bruce
Crown Lands are either a reviewer’s dream or a real headache. In a way, the appeal (or not!) of the duo’s music can be summed up in a pithy sentence or two. The problem is, that wouldn’t do justice to either them or our readers.
So if you have the shortest of attention spans: Apocalypse (and its predecessor Fearless) deftly pick up the baton Rush got bored carrying after Hemispheres. If that album and A Farewell To Kings are your favourite Rush albums, dig in, there’s a lot here to love.
Still with me? Good because that’s far from the full story.
I don’t think the band have shied away from obvious comparisons to Rush, that would be protesting a tad too much. The comparisons start with singing drummer Cody Bowles’ voice. He sings up in the stratosphere, way up in the same territory as a young Geddy Lee or David Surnkamp (Pavlov’s Dog). A more contemporary reference might be Josh Kiska of Greta Van Fleet, shorn of the Plantesque mannerisms. The duo is completed by Kevin Comeau who covers guitar, bass and keyboard duties. And boy, do the two of them cover the bases with considerable aplomb. The playing throughout this album is exemplary and intense. From complex instrumental passages that give Yes a run for their money to The Revenants, a haunting, mostly acoustic ballad, these guys seem able to do anything.
The album begins with Proclamation, a scene setting vocal and synth intro which the storming riff of Foot Soldier Of The Syndicate interrupts at just the right moment to cause maximum drama and impact. Here’s a point. This is a concept album about an galactic empire wreaking apocalyptic destruction on all who stand against it. So if that and song titles like Foot Soldier etc and indeed, the title track are likely to put you off, be warned. Lyrically it’s not laugh a minute fare, reflecting the duo’s sympathy with the indigenous peoples of their native Canada.
Like many concept albums, this is best appreciated in one sitting. Clear a space around you to listen though, especially during the 19 minute title track. There are points in this that had me behaving in a most undignified manner for a man of my years. Part VI – Showdown I: Fall of Dragons (see what I mean about song titles?) had me simultaneously trying to play air guitar, Chris Squire style air bass while flailing about on an imaginary drum kit. The pace doesn’t let up in Part X Showdown II either!
Me writing anymore is simply delaying you buying this album so I’ll close by saying there isn’t a weak moment on it. All told I haven’t been this happy with music like this since Geddy Lee told the Glasgow Apollo in ‘77 “This is a song from our new album, it’s called Xanadu.”
Mike Bruce | Now Spinning Magazine
