Canadian progressive rock duo Crown Lands have released their new studio album Apocalypse via InsideOut Music, alongside latest single ‘Blackstar‘ and a new video from collaborator Luke Paron.
The Juno-winning pair, vocalist and drummer Cody Bowles and multi-instrumentalist Kevin Comeau, play everything themselves, and Apocalypse extends the sci-fi saga running through their records. “Apocalypse is very much Blackstar’s story,” said Comeau, “his rise to power within the Syndicate, his violent victories over the Dragon Riders of Karagon, and the crushing loss of his family in the resulting civil war on his home-planet.”
The single sits at the heart of that arc. “The song ‘Blackstar’ reads like an old-western murder ballad like Marty Robbins’ ‘Big Iron‘, only through a cosmic space-prog metal lens,” Comeau said. “It’s a chronicle of Blackstar sweeping through the galaxy, crushing all that lay in his path.”
Billed as the band’s most ambitious and fully realised work to date, Apocalypse was largely written and recorded in the home studio the duo have used since 2020, after their Rituals project gave them the confidence to take near-total control of production. They brought in producers Nick Raskulinecz and David Bottrill at key moments to deepen the album’s sound. ‘Blackstar‘ follows earlier single ‘Through the Looking Glass‘.
The seven-track Apocalypse runs ‘Proclamation I‘, ‘Foot Soldiers of the Syndicate‘, ‘Through the Looking Glass‘, ‘Blackstar‘, ‘The Fall‘, ‘The Revenants‘ and the nineteen-minute title track. It is available in a number of formats via InsideOut Music.
