Canadian progressive rock duo Crown Lands has garnered significant acclaim in recent years. Debuting with a self-titled album in 2020, then following it in 2023 with Fearless and now crowning that with a pair of new albums, Ritual I and Ritual II.
Recently Crown Lands entered Chalet Recording Studio to perform a selection of the Ritual material, assisted by additional musicians Graham Shaw, Brian Griffin and Nash Annan who helped flesh out their expansive sound. The session was filmed & directed by Luke Paron, with the band’s own Kevin Comeau providing the final mix.
Comeau commented: “It was an exhilarating few days putting the Ritual live sessions together. We didn’t have any time for a full-band rehearsal so we used the day before filming to set-up the studio, mic everything up, get the pre-amps dialed in, adjust headphone mixes, and then hopefully get an hour or so in to play the material together for the first time. As you can see from the videos, the studio set-up was intense and subsequently we ran out of time on August 19th to run through the material once we had the whole band gain-staged.
“We ran through the songs for the first time together on the day of shooting. We played through each song once without the cameras rolling to get the changes and rhythms together, then the band played the songs 2 or 3 times while filming, selecting the best take to edit the footage to. We ended up using the last take of each song, with the exception of ‘Shadows Under Moonlight‘. That was the first take.
“There’s a certain energy in the live recordings of these tunes: we’re a single unit, locked in riding a knife’s edge between the complex layered polyrhythms and chord changes. This is the first time Crown Lands has been filmed performing with extra musicians and the band we put together rose to the occasion tremendously.”
The full live session performance will be premiered on the band’s YouTube channel on Friday 10th October at 11am EST, where the band will also be joining the chat with fans – set a reminder for here.
Ahead of that, you can watch the band perform ‘Mirage’ here at RAMzine.
Rituals is available on vinyl here.
Crown Lands is a Juno Award-winning group – made up of vocalist and drummer Cody Bowles and multi-instrumentalist Kevin Comeau – who recently signed to InsideOutMusic, and issued a pair of ambitious instrumental albums titled Ritual I and Ritual II – Available now for both streaming and as a limited 2LP vinyl edition.
Both albums are layered with drums, synthesisers, and assorted percussion to create a complex tapestry of music unlike anything they have created before.
Comeau commented: “The Ritual project highlights a completely different side of Crown Lands. While the electric side of the band is full of bluster and drama, the Rituals show a more contemplative and meditative side of our music, and serve as world-building albums for the main storyline of our next album.”
Bowles added: “Ritual hopes to illustrate our primal connectedness to the natural world, and suggests a way to listen to that inner awareness that watches all without doing. In easing one’s mind and stilling the thoughts and chatter when listening to this record, we strive to catalyse a deeper connectedness to the present moment that is as peaceful as it is beautiful.”
“Crown Lands are one of the most exciting young bands in our genre and we are proud and excited to be releasing their new albums. We see a very bright future for these young Canadians!” said InsideOutMusic label-head Thomas Waber, while Bowles and Comeau discussed the meaning behind Ritual in the video featured below.
Ritual I was recorded during the uncertain period of the pandemic. With the band unable to enter the studio or tour, Bowles and Comeau looked for a creative outlet.
“I suppose this record became our act of defiance against stagnation, in a time when so many familiar lights around us flickered out in the deafening silence. It was a glimmer in our darkness,” claimed Bowles. “Ritual I was made during a tumultuous time in our lives, alongside producer Justin Meli in our little B Room at Chalet Recording Studios. It served as a reprieve from the upending haze of the pandemic, far from the high-pressure studio sessions that typically accompanied the pursuit of our mainstream sound.
“We wanted to record this one ourselves as our own decompression from the mechanical precision of the Fearless sessions with David Bottrill. The only constant between the two was the ritual of coming together under a different pretence to the norm—not to fulfil a specific expectation or outer pressure, but rather to create solely with the joy of creation in our hearts. In a special way, this record was truly our own in a way none other had been before.
“It felt liberating to be so free with our creativity, and it was the next logical step for Kev and I, both in musicality and in scope: more textures, more strings, more complexity. We hope you enjoy these two journeys into unknown realms, and uncover the mysteries of the Ritual for yourself,” he concluded.
With both albums featuring artwork by Justyna Koziczak, Ritual I became available for streaming here and features the tracks: ‘Dawn’, ‘The Storm’, ‘Vigil’, ‘Dusk’ and ‘The Serpent’. Now in August Ritual II can be streamed here and features the tracks ‘Tempest’, Respite’, ‘Shadows Under Moonlight’, ‘Mirage’, ‘In The Reeds‘ and ‘Celestial Marsh’.
