Style: Progressive rock (clean vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Rush, Led Zeppelin, King Crimson
Country: Canada
Release date: 15 May 2026

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When I heard Crown Lands’ Fearless, it was perhaps the most ‘transported’ that any album has made me feel—like coming in from the freezing cold into a hot sauna. It took me back to a nostalgic chapter of my own life: the years I first fell in love with Rush, Pink Floyd, and Led Zeppelin, chasing the pull of a musical era I had missed but somehow still felt homesick for. While Fearless clearly worshipped those groups to a high degree, it went beyond mere adoration by taking prog the way Rush once did to write it—prioritizing songwriting, then technicality—and making it a vehicle for their own big ideas, mythmaking, and identity. Apocalypse, Crown Lands’ latest LP, doubles down, attempting to build their own mythic monument from the ground up.

Not just a collection of bangers, Apocalypse is a true prog rock epic with each track forming a part of a singular vision and greater whole. In that sense, it’s more of an accomplishment than Fearless. Where that album had two songs that told a story (with other tracks connecting thematically at best), Apocalypse is conceived as a complete narrative work. Set a century before the events of “Starlifter: Fearless Part II,” the album chronicles the rise of Blackstar and the Syndicate: a radicalized militaristic regime born from desperation, political collapse, and greed beneath the dying sun of Xurgon Prime. What begins as revolutionary fervor metastasizes into intergalactic conquest, culminating in the destruction of the planet Karagon and the fall of its heroic Dragon Riders. But Apocalypse is less interested in glorifying war than tracing its cycles. By the album’s end, Blackstar returns home having suffered personal loss, and to find his own world consumed by civil war, cementing the Syndicate’s reign not as a triumph, but as the bitter endpoint of hatred feeding endlessly into itself. Between its mythic rise-and-fall storytelling and its fantasy-infused sci-fi aesthetic of dragons, dying planets, and cosmic conquest, I’m fully on board. Can the music sustain these weighty stakes?

The first song proper, “Foot Soldiers of the Syndicate”, is a promising start, positively marching off the wax and into your eardrums with ‘70s prog rock swagger in its guitar riffs and melodies. Vocalist and drummer Cody Bowles’ intense, high shrieks are undoubtedly the highlight, as they are throughout much of the album. Tracks like “Blackstar” and “Through the Looking Glass” showcase a vocal range that defies gravity, where Bowles’ voice climbs beyond angelic highs, demolishing any preconceived ceiling of how lofty their voice can soar. That transcendent range is brilliantly grounded in “The Fall”, where a jagged snarl during the catchy chorus adds a visceral new edge to an already formidable vocal toolkit. Cody is also more than capable of pulling back and providing a delicate touch as they do in the album’s ballad “The Revenants”, where they also provide a lovely flute accompaniment.

Bowles is only one half of the dynamic duo that forms Crown Lands, though. Kevin Comeau’s guitar work has me grooving throughout the album. His riffs have that physical quality that makes your head move before your brain catches up—look no further than the stomping opening of “The Fall”, or the gentle ascent and descent in the acoustic verse riff of “Through the Looking Glass”. It’s a vibe, man. Comeau also mans the bass and synths, both of which have their own stellar moments. The driving bass under “Blackstar” is that instrument’s standout performance, while the synth and key work throughout Apocalypse’s long-form title track provide much of its connective tissue.

With a narrative, a ballad, and an epic, Apocalypse checks many of the rock opera boxes—and mostly delivers on them, which made pinning down its lack of immediacy difficult. I think the crux of the issue lies in that long-form epic, “Apocalypse”. While most of its transitions between movements work, there’s still a looming sense that a bunch of strong but not entirely reconciled musical ideas form the nineteen-minute runtime. You can hear where certain passages might have begun life as something else entirely, or where a section that arrives with great confidence perhaps belonged to a different song altogether before finding its way here. The track is still largely a triumph: its synth-infused off-beat intro, frequent vocal harmonies, myriad of guitars, synths, and flutes all contribute to its grandeur. But, it’s the one (and largest) place where the seams are slightly visible.

Nevertheless, Apocalypse succeeds because its ambition never rings hollow. The story is load-bearing, not wallpaper. The mythology, rise-and-fall political narrative, the dragon riders and the dying worlds—all of it is matched by performances and music big enough to carry that weight. I want a comic book or a pulpy novel with a cartoony cover in this mythos. Apocalypse is the kind of prog rock record that doesn’t just understand the virtues of theatricality, but delivers on them. Sometimes you can see the machinery behind the spectacle, but you still believe in it. I choose to believe.

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Recommended tracks: “The Fall”, “Through the Looking Glass”, “The Revenants”, “Apocalypse”
You may also like: Sykofant, Orion, Alex Carpani, Syrinx, Gygax
Final verdict: 8/10

Related links: Bandcamp | Facebook | Instagram

Label: Inside Out Music

Crown Lands is:
– Cody Bowles (vocals, drums & percussion, flutes)
– Kevin Comeau (guitars, bass, keys, synths)