LANDS OF HOPE AND GLORY

Rising Canadian hopefuls Crown Lands are modern proggers taking threads from the genre's illustrious past and weaving them into the present

- Grant Moon

Last year Crown Lands played the after-party at a Formula 1 Grand Prix, at the personal behest of Bahrain’s Prince Salman. “He’s the coolest guy ever,” says the band’s guitarist/bassist/keyboard player Kevin Comeau. “He’s really into rock music.

We’d toured with Greta Van Fleet, and I guess Prince Salman reached out to their manager to ask if he knew any other new interesting rock bands. He watched our Odyssey live performance video, and took a chance on us. Nick Mason was in the audience. Our song The Oracle is a fourteen-minute epic with a lot of Floyd in it, and the whole time I was just like: ‘Do it for Nick, man! Do it for Nick!’ It was amazing.”

Twenty-something duo Crown Lands derive much from Pink Floyd on Fearless – their second, tune-freighted, none-moreprog album – but it’s fellow Canadians Rush who remain their North Star. It’s not a stretch to say that Crown Lands are to Rush what Greta Van Fleet are to Led Zeppelin. When Classic Rock moots the comparison, singer/drummer Cody Bowles laughs loudly. “That’s totally fair. I love that! We get the Greta Van Fleet comparisons. But they’re not necessarily prog.”

Greta aren’t, but Crown Lands very much are. When Bowles and Comeau started out back in 2015, they drew attention with their bluesy, garage-rock sounds. Early EPs Mantra and Rise Over Run had White Stripes and Zeppelin vibes – quality stuff but nothing to stop you in your tracks. But as their confidence and standing grew they reached for the music they really wanted to play. On 2021’s ambitious sci-fi epic Context: Fearless Pt.I and last year’s White Buffalo EP (featuring that Floydy piece