FEARLESS

CROWN LANDS is the project of Cody Bowles and Kevin Comeau and you might add producer David Bottrill as an honourary third member. David jams with them playing bass and of course helps with his musical knowledge. And don't forget Bottrill was Peter Gabriel's touring bass player for years. This album "Fearless" is dedicated to the defenders of the land and I am certainly that but in a different way than this duo would think. The closer "Citadel" makes me so proud, an ode to those defenders you could say. Meaningful words and the piano to start is a nice touch.

CROWN LANDS are opening for KISS in their final cross Canada tour and how appropriate that they have this duo to end their final journey across our land. Gene will be having flashbacks to the 70's when RUSH opened for them. These guys are storytellers and RUSH and LED ZEPPELIN certainly influenced them in that regard but also John Prine and Paul Simon. Instrumentally add YES and PINK FLOYD all huge influences on their sound. This particular album has more of a RUSH sound than their earlier ones and that's on purpose bringing in Terry Brown to make sure that would happen. I actually think more of LED ZEPPELIN on their earlier releases.

This is a band that advocates LGBTQ+ and Indigenous communities rights and Cody learned at the feet of the elders at Alderville a First Nation Reserve. Man these two can play like it's nobody's business. Kevin says that when they get enough money they will add a drummer so Cody can do what he dreams of and that's being the singer only in the Freddy Mercury tradition while Kevin wants to focus on the keyboards so they would bring in a guitarist. The band themselves say the blood of RUSH runs deep in Fearless's veins swirled with flavours of YES and PINK FLOYD. The anti-colonial theme is present in this album but done through a sci-fi story.

The biggest difference between this album and the previous EP "White Buffalo" is that Cody's vocals are noticeably higher pitched maybe to get that Geddy sound down from the 70's. And how dividing were Geddy's 70's vocals? So the same here to a point I would say. it's the only thing keeping me from giving this 5 stars yet I appreciate them in this context. The record opens with the epic 18 minute "Starlifter Fearless Pt.II" and electronics greet our ears first and we get a lot more keyboards on this record compared to their past. Those are blown up quickly by a heavy sound. Check out those vocals before 6 minutes! Great sound before 8 minutes as it changes and is all instrumental here. Powerful all instrumental sound after 13 minutes before it turns spacey before 16 minutes.

"Dreamer Of The Dawn" is so uplifting and uptempo with the vocals dominating over top. "The Shadow" has a nice heavy sound to it with punchy drums. "Right Way Back" is so high energy including the vocals. "Context: Fearless Pt.I" opens with a galore of atmosphere before that gets stomped on. They change things up a bit here including some narration. Oh and the bass after 5 minutes is another nice touch. "Reflections" opens with spacey atmosphere but it kicks in after a minute sounding like RUSH including those vocals. "Penny" is a song Kevin wrote for his Grandmother who had passed. He was at her bedside and went home and composed this moving acoustic guitar piece. The final two songs are awesome. I've touched on the closer but "Lady Lake" might be my favourite track on here. Mid paced and heavy.

I had a lot of fun with this last week.