Our list of the 10 best Elton songs from the 2000s continues our look back at each decade of Elton John’s long career. We just finished the 90s, a decade in which we saw him improve on what he had put out in the 80s. I truly believe that the improvement continued even more strongly into the 2000s. In the new century, Elton John released three new studio albums in the first decade. But it’s the first album, Songs from the West Coast, that came out in 2001 where for the first time in over 20 plus years Elton returns
Emerging from a small coastal town in Massachusetts nearly two decades ago, psychedelic proggers Elder have continually evolved well beyond their early roots in stoner and doom metal. Across seven studio albums, the band has developed a distinctive sound that blends elements of progressive rock, psychedelia, and heavy rock into something unmistakably their own. Their latest album, Through Zero, continues that progression, delivering another ambitious collection of songs that reinforces Elder’s reputation as one of the leading forces in modern heavy psychedelic rock. This music is called “Heavy Psych,” for a concise term. Based on pentatonic scales (five notes per octave), their music often consists of long songs, heavy, fuzzy riffs, and downtuned guitars. Through Zero is a music engineering term describing a frequency that passes through zero and continues into the negative instead of stopping.
The album’s title, Through Zero, could refer to a metaphor that something that seems like an ending may be a transition point in something bigger…something that we can’t see when we are bogged down in the day-to-day of this thing called life. It can represent a continuity, even a rebirth of sorts. Take a look at the album cover. There is a thick underbrush of prickly vegetation colored in black, which can often represent death, morning, or even things that cloud our vision…things that seem impossible to see through or overcome. However, the hues of bright orange and red with the sun as a focal point represent the light and warmth just out of reach from the darkness…something we often use as a guide or even an ideal. Meaning: We all have struggles…things that are both seen and unseen, but if we can just cut through some of the thick underbrush that mars our lives, there is something out there that we can strive to become…some good in life if you will. The cover art reminds me of a quote that reads, “Dreams are what makes life tolerable.”
“Sigil to Ruin” is first. Although the background is shadowy at first, meaty bass notes come pushing in with both hands raised, along with eerie lead guitar work. There is also some tension, and the sound makes a quick segue into the psychedelic, with keyboards and lead guitar notes traveling in unison over a thick bed of bass. Some vocals pepper the song, adding just the right seasoning at just the right times, and you get a clear sense of progressive music from all of the dexterous timing shifts. “Capture/Release” has that cathartic effect that some music can create for the listener, and rhythm guitars and bass notes keep it moving quickly, with keyboard notes providing a lot of the muscle. It’s catchy and captivating, and makes you feel alive. The vocal harmonies are executed wonderfully, and the song moves with the energy and undulation of ocean waves. The “release” happens towards the end, when it heads for a crescendo, and crashes into a retaining wall.
The title track is a little more brooding. Settling down with a slower pace, menacing riffs combine with “thicker than country bacon” bossy bass notes and keyboards to create a firm sound without cracks. One thing that the band is outstanding at so far is balancing the brood with outright feel-good tones, and the tension with release. In many ways, this phenomenon mirrors our lives. Segueing into “Strata,” the title refers to “one of a number of portions or divisions likened to layers or levels.” In other words, a song that has more than one message or meaning. There are many layers of the music on the album, especially in this song. It moves forward with an infectious energy, seemingly singular in vision but slowing at times just enough to give you pause. Firm and fuzzy guitar riffs provide much of the fuel needed in the song, acting like high-octane gasoline that you would fill your performance machine with. Yet, as firm as you press down the gas pedal, there’s a cliff at the end of the road that springs up from nowhere, and the roar of the engine dissipates.
Making a smooth and quiet segue into “Sight Unseen,” there is a mute calm that settles in. It’s a gentle, psychedelic ride from there, and keyboards provide much of the direction. Layers are added to the song along the way, and you pass through bright colors, perceived textures, and even some dark, menacing passages. The calm returns at the end, and it’s as still as the night air. “Blighted Age” is the final song. Simply defined, blighted means a thing that spoils or damages something. Taking the phrase a step further, a blighted age perfectly describes the times we find ourselves living in these days. They talk briefly about how “it’s not enough, we know there’s gotta be a better way.” There’s a stillness that develops from there as the song rides into the sunset, and I’m not sure if any of the questions the album asks were answered, but it doesn’t take away from it being a useful exercise.
Although Through Zero can seem straightforward, uncomplicated, and even elementary at times, that is indeed its smoke and mirrors. It holds the illusion that it is more complex than it appears. The layers on the album are like an onion; with each further peel, you discover more and more. ELDER offers two main ideas on their new album. First, they prove that riffs are still relevant, and even vital in today’s Progressive Metal scene. Even though some bands have all but abandoned them, some of the riffs they play are downright bossy, in the same manner as an overgrown playground bully. Second, the corollary with the album title asks us to think bigger, rise above the things we can see and touch, and trust the process that even though we think we’ve reached the end, there are still things to learn.
YouTube Links:
Released May 29, 2026, on Blues Funeral Recordings
In 1982 the members of Toto discovered an angel in their midst. Her name was Rosanna Arquette.
She was a 20-something actress whose career was still three years away from pay dirt in 1985’s Desperately Seeking Susan, and whose fledgling relationship with Toto keyboard player Steve Porcaro meant she occasionally dropped off beers as the band recorded what would become Toto IV.
“We got on quite well with her,” former Toto singer Bobby Kimball told Classic Rock in 2008. “She was going out with Steve and we were always respectful to each other’s partners. I mean, how hard is it to have a beautiful woman around?”
Arquette was not the only thing of beauty in LA’s Studio 55 during that time. One track recorded for Toto IV stood out above all others. In contrast to some of the album’s harder tracks, this was a lilting power ballad, sketched out by band lynchpin David Paich, hopelessly romantic in its sentiment (‘All I wanna do when I wake up in the morning is see your eyes’) and titled simply Rosanna.
“David was constantly writing songs at that point,” recalled Kimball, “and he came to us with Rosanna half-finished. The first time we ever heard it was when we walked into his living room in Encino. He had this grand piano, and he told us: ‘I want you to check this idea out’. He was pleased with it, and we were too. I knew it was a hit.”
Toto singer Bobby Kimball in 1982 (Image credit: Rob Verhorst/Redferns)
Each member of Toto played a part in bringing Rosanna to fruition. Kimball and guitarist Steve Lukather transposed the musical key so the verse and chorus could be traded between them as a duet. Porcaro and Paich ironed out the keyboard solo at five o’clock in the morning. Late drummer Jeff Porcaro laid down a masterful shuffle inspired by John Bonham.
“Jeff was really into Led Zeppelin,” Lukather told Classic Rock, “and for Rosanna he morphed Fool In The Rain [from Zep’s 1979 album In Through The Out Door] with a Bernard Purdie drum groove [a renowned session drummer, Purdie invented the Purdie Shuffle]. And we took it from there.”
As former session musicians to a man, it was little surprise that Toto bottled Rosanna fast in the studio. “In one afternoon we did the basic rhythm track,” Lukather said. “And that first guitar solo was made up on the spot the first time we played it. You just get lucky with stuff like that sometimes.
Toto’s Steve Porcaro and Rosanna Arquette, one of the inspirations behind the song (Image credit: Ron Galella, Ltd./Ron Galella Collection via Getty Images)
“I remember that I had my two-year-old daughter listening to my vocal as I recorded it. And when the band recorded their parts, I knew it was something special.”
Less expected was Rosanna’s impact upon its release in the summer of 1982, with US No.2 and UK No.12 chart placings suddenly making this most faceless of muso bands a household name. “We loved it,” recalled Kimball in 2008, of his overnight ubiquity. “Any time you can get a leg up in the music business you have to go for it. The fact that Rosanna was such a hit made all the difference in the world. It’s like winning a Grammy or something – people take notice.”
And yet, even as it was a hit around the world there was a major bone of contention surrounding Rosanna. On the television networks of America, Rosanna Arquette was informing audiences that the song had been written in tribute to her.
“It was just an opportune moment for her to grab the brass ring and run with it,” said Kimball. “She was just starting her career, and the song was so big that she went on several talk shows and said it was about her. But I can tell you that it wasn’t. David’s line was always that he just used the name because it fitted into the song. Then she came into the picture and claimed it.”
That sentiment that has always been supported by Paich. “Rosanna is about three girls I knew, all rolled into one,” he explained in 2008. “After I met Rosanna Arquette I just stole her name and stuck it on there.”
As the years went by, the war of words between Arquette and Toto over the spiritual ownership of Rosanna went back and forth, ranging in tone from playful to hostile. In one 2006 interview Lukather openly expressed the opinion that “that bitch has ridden our coat-tails long enough”. Arquette, meanwhile, claimed that she doesn’t even like the song. “That’s because it’s no longer useful to her,” Kimball told Classic Rock.
Toto at the 1983 Grammy Awards (Image credit: Ron Galella/Ron Galella Collection via Getty Images)
Rosanna has never been left off a Toto setlist since it was written. Kimball, who spent much of the second half of the 80s and most of the ’90s out of Toto, returned to the band in 1998 for another 10-year-long stint. Even then, he observed that it was still the moment in the show that received the most feverish reception.
“It’s the one song the crowd are waiting for,” he said back in 2008. “And I can’t tell you the number of people who have come up over the years and told me that they fell in love or made babies over that one song!”
Originally published in Classic Rock issue 115 (January 2008). Updated in July 2026.
Thirty years in and fifteen albums deep, Sevendust made a deliberate choice with their newest album, One, to stop trying to make a deliberate choice. No overarching concept, no sonic direction, no pressure to be heavier or leaner or more polished than the last album. Just five guys, Lajon Witherspoon [vocals], Clint Lowery [guitar], John Connolly [guitar], Vince Hornsby [bass], and Morgan Rose [drums] writing songs and seeing what survives.
The result is ten diverse and muscular songs, introduced by the title track “One,” which sets the album’s tone off with a brooding riff, an unshakable groove, and Lajon’s unmistakable melodic voice. Songs like “Unbreakable” lean into a big, soaring chorus built for live crowds, while “Threshold” injects a sharper, more progressive edge, offering some of the album’s deeper moments. It’s an album that showcases a band deep into its career yet still hungry to push its sound forward.
In my interview with Morgan Rose, he offered an insightful, often humorous look at the creation of One. Rather than approaching the album with a predetermined direction, Morgan explained that the band abandoned the idea of forcing a specific sound and instead focused on writing the strongest songs possible. He also described the importance of the sequencing process, ensuring that One flows like a complete listening experience rather than simply a collection of songs.
L to R: Clint Lowery, Morgan Rose, Lajon Witherspoon, Vince Hornsby, John Connolly – Photo by Chuck Brueckmann
The result is an album that embraces the full spectrum of Sevendust’s identity with deeply personal themes. He also shared the band’s kind yet hilarious way of tossing a member’s idea for a song to the curb. In fact, it even happened to him when pitching an idea.
He went on to highlight the close creative partnership with vocalist Lajon during the making of One, which was unlike anything he had experienced previously. Morgan noted that both men were navigating similar personal struggles and found themselves speaking the same emotional language throughout the writing sessions. He said, “We were both miserable,” with characteristic bluntness. “We were speaking each other’s language, which doesn’t happen all the time.” Songs such as “Bright Side” and “Is This the Real You?” emerged from those shared experiences, blending personal reflection with universal themes that listeners can relate to in their own lives.
Some of the more comical moments came when Morgan revealed he had practiced only once in his life. It was 11:00 pm in MI (Musical Institute) when his roommate called him a loser for never showing up to class. In a drunk “I’ll show you, moment,” he went and practiced. By his own admission, he had no idea what he was doing. The irony of that story is that his playing on One is some of the tightest of his career. His approach sat between two poles: let the groove breathe on some songs, lock the kick drum to the riff on others.
(written by Islander) As you can see, despite yesterday being the Fourth of July, I carved out enough time to find music worth recommending today. I had made some of today’s selections before yesterday but completed the grouping while people were getting ready to make a lot of loud noises last night — or so […]
Burnt Witch Bring the Doom to The Zach Moonshine Show with World Premiere, Delta Doom Fest Talk, and Plenty of Underground Metal Mayhem
West Tennessee doom heavyweights Burnt Witch returned to The Zach Moonshine Show on Metal Devastation Radio for one of the most entertaining conversations we’ve had in a long time. Packed with laughs, stories from the road, gear talk, and plenty of doom worship, the episode also featured the exclusive world premiere of the band’s crushing cover of Electric Wizard’s “We Hate You.”
Now officially available exclusively on Bandcamp, Burnt Witch’s take on the legendary doom anthem captures everything fans have come to expect from the band. Massive riffs, swamp-soaked fuzz, thunderous low end, and an unmistakable Southern doom attitude make it more than just a cover. It’s a tribute delivered with the band’s own unmistakable identity.
During the interview, the band revealed that the track was originally intended for a split release with fellow doom outfit Stone Wielder , but decided to release it early to bridge the gap while fans wait for their debut full length album.
Speaking of the upcoming album, Burnt Witch shared that they’ve been hard at work writing and refining new material, promising a record that’s even darker, heavier, and surprisingly bluesier than their acclaimed debut EP Dopelich .
“The album is going to be a lot darker… a lot heavier… weirdly a lot bluesier while also being a lot heavier.”
The conversation also explored how the band has steadily built momentum throughout the underground metal scene. Following recognition from Weedian’s Best Releases spotlight, Burnt Witch have continued earning attention through high quality content creation, relentless promotion, and memorable live performances.
One of the interview’s highlights came when the band discussed legendary guitarist Matt Pike discovering and repeatedly interacting with their gear videos on social media. For a band rooted in the traditions of doom and sludge, earning recognition from one of the genre’s most respected players was both surreal and motivating.
Another major topic was the upcoming Delta Doom Fest , scheduled for October 17, 2026 , at Growlers in Memphis, Tennessee. What began as a simple show quickly transformed into a full blown festival after an overwhelming response from regional doom bands eager to be part of the growing Memphis heavy music scene.
Burnt Witch discussed how dozens of bands reached out wanting to participate, proving that the Southern doom underground is healthier than ever. The band also highlighted the support they’ve received from sponsors and members of the doom community, including Does It Doom, Black Doomba Records, Midwest Doom Coalition, Brutal Media, and Metal Devastation.
The interview wasn’t all business, though. Listeners were treated to hilarious conversations covering everything from the lack of dedicated music venues in West Tennessee to the importance of supporting artists on Bandcamp, the future of AI in music, touring, content creation, and why taking every opportunity can open unexpected doors for independent bands.
It was exactly the kind of unfiltered conversation that has become a trademark of The Zach Moonshine Show.
Whether you’re already a fan of Burnt Witch or just discovering them for the first time, this episode offers an inside look at one of the South’s fastest rising doom bands and the passionate community helping keep underground heavy music alive.
In addition to the interview, the full broadcast featured this week’s Battle of the Bands Top 6 Winners !
Listeners also heard brand new music from Metal Devastation PR artists and other outstanding independent metal bands from around the globe.
If you missed the live broadcast, don’t worry. You can catch the full interview or experience the complete radio show featuring all the music, premieres, and chaos below.
Listen to the Full Interview
Listen to the Complete Radio Show
Support Burnt Witch
https://burntwitch.bandcamp.com/track/we-hate-you
Support the underground. Buy the music. Go to the shows. Keep doom alive.
Full Show Track list:
Battle Of The Bands Top Six Winners:
1 – Another Demon – Drawn and Quartered feat. James Murphy (Testament, Death, Obituary) 2 – Soul Of Sheol – Paradise Is Not For Us 3 – Rage of Justice – Digital Prison 4 – Heidbekka – Völva 5 – Mistress – Terrified eyes 6 – The Pixars – Walk All Over Me
The Zach Moonshine Intro
7 – Ozzy Osbourne – That I Never Had 8 – Eaten By Sharks – Treading Water 9 – THY ANTICHRIST – Scorpio 10 – THUNDERCHIEF – Lie Nation
Burnt Witch – Featuring We Hate You – (Electric Wizard Cover)/ Glass Eye
11 – Megaton Communion – Kentucky Buddha 12 – Mothertomb – Beware 13 – NinjaWitch – Tune Low Get High/White Buffalo 14 – Summoner’s Circle – Irreverence of the Cross 15 – Solystalgia – Funeral 16 – Dimension Of The Abandoned – Spires Of Flame 17 – Narcotic Wasteland – Barbarian 18 – Frequency Overload – Sunburn 19 – Frank Palangi – Tomorrow Ends 20 – THE SPECTRE BENEATH – Plague (The Black Caress) 21 – Cayne – Domina (Feat. Ambre Vourvahis)
Super massive shout out and thanks to the 405,282 metal maniacs from around the world that tuned in live for the broadcast of devastation Friday!
After performing at the Danish Eurovision qualification contest earliest this year, Danish folk siren Myrkur has recently revealed that she’s been now focusing and working on a new album. She shared some photos from the studio where she’s been recording the forthcoming new record. Read more…
It’s that time of year again where we talk to as many bands as we can who are raring to blow you away at Bloodstock! Temples on Mars (a former Band of the Day) will be rocking the New Blood stage on the Friday… Simple things first – where are you guys from? The simple … Continue reading Road To Bloodstock 2026: Temples on Mars
Fresh from last year’s psychedelic Ritual I & II, Crown Lands are back with an even more ambitious concept piece that embraces not just their love of Rush, but also Yes and world-building tales. The Canadian duo, who consider Apocalypse to be a love letter to their inner nerdiness, tell Prog about their dreams of creating a better world for everyone.
“Ten thousand decibels is the required volume in the universe to create a black hole,” says Crown Lands guitarist/bassist/ keyboardist Kevin Comeau. “As a live band, that’s what we hope to eventually do. Sadly, we’re only sitting at around 100db right now – but give us time.”
It’s safe to say that Canadian duo Crown Lands are ambitious. In addition to their goal of altering the very fabric of space and time, new album Apocalypse continues what’s becoming one of progressive rock’s most elaborate storylines, the kind of tale that might be best told via the medium of infographics. It’s complicated, as they say.
For those who need reminding, the story really began on The Oracle, the 13-minute, five-part final track on 2021’s White Buffalo EP. To complicate things – even at this early stage – The Oracle was the third in a trilogy of songs, the second of which had appeared on the previous year’s self-titled debut album.
The third part, Mountain, was on the Rise Over Run EP in 2017. The convoluted yarn continued on 2023’s Fearless album, but the band haven’t finished yet. “We’re actually currently writing the sequel to that,” says Comeau, “but Apocalypse serves as the prequel.”
Still with us? There are other layers of complication in the story of Fearless, who awakens from cryosleep at the bottom of the ocean to find his planet terraformed (deliberately modified) by a terrifying corporate conglomerate. This part of the tale is told on Starlifter: Fearless Pt. II, the nine-movement Fearless opener, in which the character – essentially acting as a one-man army – rises against this evil syndicate and its army of radicalised minions.
“We storyboarded a lot,” says vocalist/drummer Cody Bowles. “That’s my favourite part of it: getting into the story of it and developing character arcs, or being creative in world-building. Being fans – nerds! – with a big love for the greats like The Lord Of The Rings, Dungeons & Dragons, Star Wars and Star Trek, all of those things conglomerate into this massive love letter to our inner nerdiness, and we combine it with stuff that has allegories for our world and things that are happening within it.”
So the story draws parallels with the perilous political climate in the US and the controversial activities of Immigration and Customs Enforcement? “Yeah, absolutely,” says Bowles. “Apocalypse is a story of the fall of Fearless’ planet, but also of the main antagonist, who we introduce here. His name is Black Star, and his planet falls victim to cannibalisation under the stress of radicalisation, greed and corporate overreach.
“The first song, Foot Soldiers Of The Syndicate, is about the radicalisation of people. How do they become radicalised? How do they become a tool of this military arm, and how do they get wrapped up in something when they don’t even know the scope of what they’re dealing with? What creates that core situation?”
The drummer has some theories: “I think people feel like they want to belong to something when they don’t have power; they feel weak, and they feel radicalised by how toxic masculinity is represented in the media. Some men fall down this rabbit hole of wanting more power when they feel helpless.”
“You push people into desperation,” Comeau adds. “It’s quite easy, really. You just take away people’s financial autonomy, and they’ll do things they wouldn’t normally do quite quickly. I think we’ve seen a lot of young people radicalised to the right. It’s weird seeing people who are younger than ourselves, absorbed by social media, who have grabbed onto a lot of these fascist ideals.
“And I think a lot of it comes from seeing zero stability and not seeing anything improving. When you make things bad enough for normal people to want to join up in this violent regime, it’s going to backfire. And, yes, Black Star has this moment. He’s a tragic anti-hero. Well, not an anti-hero – just tragic, really. Everything he fought for is gone. When he gets back to his planet, his wife and his child have succumbed to the war, and he’s like, ‘My God, what have I done?’”
We went out for coffee with Nick Raskulinecz and it felt like no time had passed. It felt really special again
“His whole planet is collateral damage for the spiral of ruin he’s set upon the universe,” says Bowles.
“Spiral of ruin!” says Comeau, delighted by this new turn of phrase. “Write that down! This is basically how this entire record gets made!”
Unlike Fearless, which came out via the duo’s now-expired deal with Spinefarm/Universal, Apocalypse is released by InsideOutMusic, home to Dream Theater, Devin Townsend, Big Big Train and other prog-minded folk. It’s a more natural base for Crown Lands; but with major label budgets a thing of the past, the band have adjusted, recording much of the album at Chalet Studios in Uxbridge, a small township 45 miles north-east of Toronto.
(Image credit: Lane Dorsey)
It’s the space where Rush completed pre-production work on Presto, Roll The Bones, Counterparts and Test For Echo, and it’s become a home away from home for Crown Lands, who’ve been using it since 2020. Last year’s meditative Ritual I & II was recorded there, and gave both musicians the confidence that they could successfully make an album without the kind of fancy studios major labels expect their expensive charges to use.
And then, with the first tracks in the bag, they received a visit from an old friend, producer Nick Raskulinecz, who worked with them on 2021 single Context: Fearless Pt. 1. “We went out for coffee with Nick, and it just felt like no time had passed,” says Comeau. “It just felt really special again, and he invited us down to his studio in Nashville to do some writing together. That was our first time really writing with Nick, rather than having him just producing.”
We’re like, ‘Remember that part in Relayer where it goes crazy? This is where we do that!
The first song they came up with was Casting Stones – which, in typically unstraightforward Crown Lands fashion, doesn’t appear on Apocalypse, despite being one of the pair’s favourite tracks from the sessions, because “it didn’t quite fit into the story”. It will eventually appear on a deluxe edition of the album.
Back to Raskulinecz: “The music and the writing process were just so good that we wanted to do more,” says Bowles. “So we ended up doing another track with him, Through The Looking Glass, and it absolutely slapped. We were so excited.”
At this point, Raskulinecz’s diary got in the way with Deftones, Evanescence and other lucrative names. And with some of the drums recorded (Raskulinecz, lest we forget, was the recipient of one of Neil Peart’s fabled Drum Workshop kits), they returned to Canada to track the rest of the album at Chalet with David Bottrill, who oversaw most of the production work on Fearless and whose CV includes Peter Gabriel, Tool, Muse and Rush. He also mixed the album.
The result is spectacular, from the waves of gentle synths that introduce Proclamation to the wild 2112-isms of Foot Soldiers Of The Syndicate, and the lovely The Revenants. Crown Lands still sound like peak-kimono Rush for most of the album, but when Prog suggests that the choreographed chaos of the 19-minute title track’s climax might actually have been inspired by Yes’ The Gates Of Delirium, they swiftly agree.
“That was the part we turned to in Relayer,” admits Bowles. “We’re like, ‘Remember that part in Relayer where it goes crazy? This is where we do that!’”
“Cody had this bag full of percussion bits,” adds Comeau, “and we were just knocking it around, yelling and creating that chaos!”
People feel they can’t change the world… I’d challenge them to change what they can within their own lives
It’s also an album that presents a challenge. With all that chaos creation and more overdubs than on previous recordings, the duo have to figure out how they’re going to play it live. “We realised after touring Starlifter and playing an 18-minute song front to back with just two people, we had to figure out what the hero should be in any section. Is it a bass moment? A keyboard moment? A guitar moment? Does Cody need to focus more on singing? Does Cody need to focus more on drums? And for this record, we just said, ‘Whatever –we’ll figure it out later!’”
And they did. In March they released a stunning performance video of Apocalypse, with Comeau and Bowles (stepping out from the drumkit, singing like Jeff Buckley in a coat worthy of Ming the Merciless) joined by guitarist/ keyboardist Adam Inrig and bassist Dan Walton, both from fellow Ontarian prog rockers The Dreamland Band.
“I realised how much more freeing it is for Cody and I to have these parts that we’ve written played by somebody else,” says Comeau. “And then we can just do whatever we want over it.”
“Apocalypse has a lot of harmonies, for the first time ever in Crown Lands, and to be able to sing with other people for the first time is magical,” adds Bowles. “We didn’t want to inhibit the music in any way. We wanted to be the best thing it possibly could be on this record. We do have ideas for an arrangement where we have to scale back to play as a duo. Inevitably, we’re not always going to have our buddies around to help us.”
This article originally appeared in Prog 170 (Image credit: Future)
The extra musicians bring another benefit, as Comeau reveals how Bowles can talk to Walton about Star Wars all day, or to Inrig about Phil Collins and Neil Peart. It’s Crown Lands’ nerdiness that makes their music so beguiling: their pure love for the source material, and that obsessive fan approach to their own take on it.
“To be a progressive rock band in 2026 is a living anachronism,” says Comeau. “I think our role is to push further and further into the niche that we’ve found. Our career has blossomed when we’ve gotten weirder and weirder and fully embrace the music we both love.”
And the message of Apocalypse – are we really doomed? “Someone once said to me that we can only tend to the parts of the garden that we can reach,” says Bowles. “People feel like they can’t change the world, so why bother? But I’d challenge them to think of changing what they can within their own lives, within their own friend groups, within their own circles, and making them the best places to possibly be.
“I think if enough of us do that, it will ripple across the fabric of society and create a better place.”
