Rush fans rejoice! Crown Lands are back with their second full-length album, Fearless, and it’s a treasure trove of quality musicianship, complex time signatures and sci-fi-inspired lyrics that turn the prog dial up to 11. The duo with a huge sound reveal why they’ve ditched their trademark blues rock in favour of carrying the torch for their Canadian musical heroes.

Words: Dave Everley Images: Andy Ford

Crown Lands are Fearless when it comes to making prog songs.

On January 8, 2020, Crown Lands’ Cody Bowles and Kevin Comeau were due to fly from their homes just outside Toronto to Nashville to hook up with former Rush producer Nick Raskulinecz to finish off a song they’d been working on for the past three years.

This was a huge deal on several levels. The Canadian duo’s Rush fandom goes bone deep and the track, a shifting, seven-minute mini-epic titled Context: Fearless Pt 1, was both homage to the Canadian prog icons in spirit and sound, and an evolutionary step away from the White Stripes/ Rival Sons-inspired blues rock with which Crown Lands had made their name. They’d even started recording the song three years earlier with original Rush producer Terry Brown, and now the guy who had worked on the venerated trio’s final two albums was getting involved.

Fearless is out now!

“It was kind of fitting,” guitarist/ bassist and keyboard player Comeau tells Prog. “Terry had started Rush out and Nick had seen them through at the end.”

But 24 hours before the pair were due to board that plane, they got some dreadful news: Neil Peart had passed away. Given Raskulinecz’s closeness to Rush, they assumed the session would be cancelled. Then they got a text from the producer.

“He said, ‘You guys have got to carry the torch, you’ve got to see this vision through, so come on down and we can listen to Rush and cry and whatever,’” reveals the multi-talented drummer/ vocalist/flautist Bowles.

And so they boarded the plane and found themselves in Raskulinecz’s studio, honouring the memory of Rush and Peart and working on their own song. “It was tough,” says Bowles. “But there was a weird magic to it.”

At some point, Raskulinecz mentioned that he had one of the kits Peart had used on Snakes And Arrows there in the studio. Did Bowles want to play it? He didn’t have to ask twice.

“It was one of the most hair-raising moments of my life,” says Bowles. “I was channelling some wild shit. I got goosebumps.”

As both the finished song and the duo’s recently released second album Fearless prove, few bands are so deserving of this prog equivalent of a papal blessing. Rush are Crown Lands’ biggest inspiration, and their influence is embedded in the duo’s DNA, from their intricate musical flights to Bowles’ acrobatic vocals. Not to mention Comeau’s backside – he has a tattoo of the iconic Starman design tattooed on his arse.