If you listen to only one track on the new Brass Camel (2026) album, make it this one: “Catch Us If You Can.”
The greatest two minutes of prog that you will hear this year begins at the three-minute mark of the song. Enjoy it at maximum volume! We’re talking YYZ-level greatness here.
Today we are highlighting even more of the superb lyrics on Brass Camel (2026), continuing with our two-week commentary on each one of the album tracks. We will conclude this week with our album review. (Spoiler alert: The amazing solos break on “Catch Us If You Can” makes it our favourite track!)
Here’s Daniel Sveinson of Brass Camel (electric guitar and vocals) on the eighth track of the album:
This song, without a doubt the most “prog” song of the album, was written at the last minute, days before we went out on tour.
Throughout the past couple of years, we’ve done very few cover songs in complete form, but we have thrown in lots of short snippets from songs that really tear it up such as Gino Vanelli’s “Brother to Brother,” Al di Meola’s “Elegant Gypsy Suite,” or Rush’s “La Villa Strangiato.”
Before heading out on tour I was thinking it would be nice to write our own piece that turns up the shred-dial so we can play a fully original set while still letting loose with some more technical material.
This one was written in a morning, fueled by espresso and a deadline.
The intro to the song had given me spy-movie vibes, so I doubled down on that with a set of lyrics about espionage, subterfuge, and the recent political tensions inspired by the current stateside administration, and filled with allusions to the War of 1812.
I’d hate to imagine a scenario where the U.S. invades Canada or annexes it by other means.
Militarily I’m sure we’d be walked over in hours or days, but the decades to follow would be a nightmare; can you imagine how difficult it would be to prevent infiltration?
Us friendly liberal Canucks would surely make the Viet Cong seem like fuckin’ Teletubbies.
We look the same, we sound the same, we share so many customs… catch us if you can.
Don’t put us on a list, U.S.A. This is a work of fiction.
We are continuing this week here at Progarchy.com to highlight some of the superb lyrics on Brass Camel (2026), with commentary on each one of the album tracks, and then we will conclude with our album review.
Spoiler alert: we consider the bridge on “Everybody Loves a Scandal” to be a truly magnificent highlight on the album! (Navigation tip: it starts at around 3:33 into the track.)
But for now, here’s Daniel Sveinson of Brass Camel (electric guitar and vocals) on the seventh track of the album:
AI — what a can of worms, isn’t it?
This song, the very first that Aubrey and I co-wrote, came about while talking about AI music and visuals and the ethical conversations around them.
We write and we play our music without any computer assistance, but when the tech was first coming out we would start many of our poster designs with AI and then use a drawing tablet to turn them into our own thing.
For us, a broke indie band, it was the first time where we could afford to present unique graphics for each and every show.
As far as we were concerned, musicians have been dealt one “get used to it” after another over the past decades — first drum machines, then sampling, and then downloading, and then streaming.
We saw a tool that could give us a leg up and we used it for a while. We stopped because:
A) we do work very hard to play/write/scheme up original ideas and didn’t want someone seeing a poster that AI had a part in making and then assuming we write music the same way, and
B) the ethical/environmental arguments against it are compelling enough to not want to touch it.
But having once made what we thought were valid justifications for the use of the technology led to the concept for this song.
When Aubrey and I got together to try writing one-on-one, we thought “let’s write a song written from the point of view of someone who does write their music entirely with AIand is absolutely unapologetic about it.”
By the end of the day we had this song demoed out and it’s one of our favourites on the album because it intentionally covers a lot of different styles, and in the end “the humans win.”
For the music video, we constructed a robot costume and recorded an entire music-video-within-the-video to tell a story of a robot who is suffering from writer’s block so it “prompts” the humans to make a song.
We are highlighting some of the superb lyrics on Brass Camel (2026) all week long here at Progarchy.com, with commentary on each one of the album tracks.
Daniel Sveinson of Brass Camel (electric guitar and vocals) comments on the sixth track of the album:
Who doesn’t love a scary story?
I read about the myth of the Leeds/New Jersey devil and it provided me with lots of visceral imagery — a human baby who transmogrifies into a vicious winged beast right there in the delivery room, surprising and terrifying everyone except the baby’s own mother who predicted this fate for her unwanted 13th child.
I thought “Fuck it, let’s write a spooky song.”
Relevant lyrics:
“The mother on the table
cackled as she knew
her prayers had been answered
and were all coming true
the priest in the corner
trembled and clutched his chest
as this paragon of evil
hewn from living flesh
confronted the indignities of infancy by rising to his feet
. . . bring the chance to catch up on the ever-growing backlog of good stuff; all of these sets (new or old, live or archival) have something to recommend them. Where available, listening links are embedded in the album titles; purchase links are also included when necessary.
Two instant favorites this time around! The 21st century incarnation of Soft Machine has always made worthwhile music; their new album Thirteen takes the whole enterprise up a notch, easily standing with the best of the band’s variegated 1970s output. New rhythm buddies Fred Thelonious Baker on bass and Asaf Sirkis on drums bring fiery precision and attractively fuzzed grunge to the engine room (Sirkis also provides contrast with his lovely downtempo tunes “Lemon Poem Song”, “Waltz for Robert” and “Disappear”); veteran guitarist John Etheridge and sax/keyboardist Theo Travis ramp up gnarly vamps, unexpected splashes of musical color, and thrilling solo excursions on hard rockers (“Open Road”, Baker’s “Turmoil”) intricately swinging fusion (“Green Books”, “Time Station”), even a multi-sectioned prog epic, “The Longest Night”. There are echoes of classic Softs throughout, culminating in a finale built around glissando guitar by founder Daevid Allen, but this isn’t a throwback or a pastiche. With all four players feeding off each other and raising their game to new heights, Thirteen makes for an audacious, exhilarating jazz-rock journey.
Meanwhile, the Tedeschi Trucks Band proves less can be more on their latest, Future Soul. Focusing on making music that’s killer without filler, the 12-piece TTB shines on 11 short, sharp tunes — rootsy as ever, chock full of hooks that conjure up like-minded musical ramblers from Joe Cocker and Leon Russell to Delaney & Bonnie. Have no fear: the funky “Crazy Cryin'”, country soul like “What in the World” and “Under the Knife”, the riff-rock rampages “Hero” and the title track – every track, in fact – will stretch out nicely into opulent jamming onstage; but the economy embraced here polishes and focuses this band’s spectacular talent to a newly gleaming finish. Susan Tedeschi’s riveting Joplin/Raitt croon, Derek Trucks’ intoxicating blend of John Coltrane, Duane Allman and his own imaginative take on slide guitar, Gabe Dixon’s chunky, resonant organ and synth work, Mike Mattison’s strong support and vocals and songwriting mesh with rock-solid rhythm, wailing gospel singers and dizzyingly eclectic horn parts into one mighty, sanctified roar. A heady, hearty collection that already brings a buzz on disc and may well levitate live.
One more brand-new release: Bruce Hornsby’s Indigo Park. An American maverick of long distinction, Hornsby is at his most poetic lyrically as he confronts aging, mortality, idyllic memories tempered with maturing wisdom, and the pull of home versus the push of the road. But seasoned by decades of collaboration with everyone from the Grateful Dead to Spike Lee, Bruce has long since stretched beyond the “New Age meets Yacht Rock” idiom of his hit singles. There’s astounding range (sorry) here: the longing Americana of the title track and the closer “Take a Light Strain”; the playground b-ball tall tale “Ecstatic”, powered by slinky hip-hop loops and verbal rhythms; a sardonic, dulcimer-driven take on smalltown complacency, “North Dakota Slate Roof”; even aching, old-timey slow drags “Alabama” and “Might As Well Be Me, Florinda” (on the latter, Dead founder Bob Weir gleefully sinks his teeth into a near-atonal duet worthy of Hornsby’s modern classical idols, matching Bruce melodic loop for melodic loop). Confident and complete in itself, Indigo Park feels like a farewell statement, but road dogs like Hornsby and his Noisemakers will doubtless approach these tunes as rough sketches to flesh out in concert. And who knows what directions they’ll go with such fine material? (Buy Indigo Park from Hornsby’s webstore.)
It’s great to see that the ever-resourceful Leonardo Pavkovic has bounced back yet again; in recent months, Pavkovic’s flagship label MoonJune Records has been shipping to the USA once more, finding effective workarounds to navigate the increasingly incoherent regime of international trade. MoonJune’s philosophy of bringing musicians together from across the globe, turning them loose and releasing the stimulating results is front and center in two recent releases. Dewa Budjana’s Praguenayama pairs the Indonesian fusion guitarist with the Czech Symphony Orchestra on an appealing selection of Budjana’s soaring, thoughtful melodies; East meets West to lush, reflective effect here – with just the right spice at key moments. Meanwhile, keyboardist Dwiki Dharmawan unites with Israeli saxophonist Gilad Atzmon and a Greek rhythm section for the probing, eclectic set Anagnorisis. Running the gamut from the Indonesian folk tradition through free jazz and impressionist balladry to the blues, this album is constantly intriguing and a genuine ensemble effort, with Dharmawan and Atzmon, Harris Lambrakis on ney flute, Vironas Ntolas’ guitar, Kimon Karoutis’ bass and Nikos Sidirokastritis’ drums all active in the conversation of equals.
Earlier this year, The Beach Boys’ We Gotta Groove: The Brother Studio Years was the talk of the rock press – quietly released on short notice, immediately sold out of its small initial pressing (I ponied up for the Japanese, CD-only edition, complete with tariffs), the subject of near-unanimous rave reviews. With a second pressing set for release at the end of this month, the buzz has backed down, which is too bad, because this fresh compilation of mid-1970s material deserves attention, at least on historical grounds. The heart of the box is The Beach Boys Love You album — the result of Brian Wilson being given his head after being dragooned back into the band for its 15th anniversary. It’s equal parts the pop genius of rock’s single greatest auteur (“Let Us Go On This Way”, “Honkin’ Down the Highway”, “The Night Was So Young”) and the painful gaucherie of a man battling for his mental health (“Good Time”, “I Wanna Pick You Up”), with both facets sometimes occupying the same song (see “Johnny Carson”, “Ding Dang”, “Solar System”). Meanwhile Carl & Dennis Wilson, Mike Love, Al Jardine and Brian’s voices can come across as tired, worn, even phlegmy, but the sound they make is still resonant and affecting. On the other hand, the sessions for the unreleased album Adult/Child are a headscratching mess – some glorious ideas (“Still I Dream Of It” was meant for Sinatra), blandly arranged for big band and excruciatingly sung. Lots of oldies from the 15 Big Ones sessions — genuinely classic production work on songs of variable quality — complete the tracklist; Brian’s one-man-band version of “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling” and Carl’s all-or-nothing take on “Shortnin’ Bread” are genuine highlights. But all of the above might be the Beach Boys’ rationale for all the stealth; Brian Wilson idolaters and hardcore fans like me will gobble it all up, but who beyond those subcultures will listen to a physical copy more than once? (If you’re with me, you can preorder the second pressing of We Gotta Groove from the Beach Boys’ webstore.)
The Replacements were nowhere in the vicinity of existential angst when 1983’s Let It Be became the talk of the college rock circuit; onstage they remained snotty punks from Minneapolis who couldn’t care less about – well, pick the topic! But as Paul Westerberg groped his way toward disciplined songcraft, catchy tunes like “I Will Dare”, “Unsatisfied” and “Sixteen Blue” looked through others’ eyes for the first time, gaining emotional depth in the bargain. And that lent the band’s goofiness (the seriocomic “Tommy Gets His Tonsils Out”, an unironic cover of KISS’ “Black Diamond”) an odd sense of purpose, their fury (“We’re Comin’ Out”, “Answering Machine”) a unexpected intensity. This new deluxe edition shows the ‘Mats flirting with — dare I say it — maturity in the studio, then blowing the very idea away with a raucous, forceful live set at Chicago’s Cubby Bear. On the brink of wider success and confronting the growing disinterest of wayward guitarist Bob Stinson (a fan of Yes & Asia’s Steve Howe – it does come through, fitfully), the Replacements couldn’t figure out how to deal with either. In many ways, that was this band’s tragedy, told most fully in Bob Mehr’s empathetic group bio Trouble Boys; forty years on, Let It Be catches them at their most openhearted, suspended between ramshackle chaos and the ambitious yet self-sabotaging major label career that followed. (Buy the Deluxe Edition of Let It Be at Rhino Records’ webstore.)
Finally, a last look at the legacy circuit: Thorsten Quaeschning’s continuation of Tangerine Dream has consistently played two hands since its reconstitution, creating excellent new electronica and marking substantial highlights in the original band’s career. Recorded in London in 2024, 50 Years of Phaedra – at the Barbican(trailer only here) does what it says in the title and more for good measure! 1974’s groundbreaking album is there in its entirety, but so is a mesmerizing multi-movement improvisation, seamlessly embedded within the suite by synth wizard Quaeschning, violinist Hosiko Yamane, and utility keyboardist Paul Frick. And if that’s not enough, a second disc enfolds the Dream’s 1980s albums, their soundtrack work from films to video games, and their recent creations; one flowing experience, both soothing and energizing, well worth the time you spend on this unique synthesized trip. (Buy 50 Years of Phaedra from Burning Shed.)
We are highlighting some of the superb lyrics on Brass Camel (2026) all week long here at Progarchy.com, with commentary on each one of the album tracks.
Daniel Sveinson of Brass Camel (electric guitar and vocals) comments on the fifth track of the album, an ode to northern Canadian winters:
This was inspired by Curtis talking about a National Film Board piece he had watched on life north of sixty.
I went down my own documentary rabbit hole and wrote the lyrics to “Ice Cold.”
It’s my musings about northern resilience and a way of life that seems almost incomprehensible to us here in the mild south of the country.
We are highlighting some of the superb lyrics on Brass Camel (2026) all week long here at Progarchy.com, with commentary on each one of the album tracks.
Daniel Sveinson of Brass Camel (electric guitar and vocals) comments on the fourth track of the album:
I hate war but love aeroplanes and unfortunately, just like churches and mosques get the coolest buildings, the military aviation industry produces the most memorable machines.
This is the third song in our catalogue (the first being “The Last Flight of the Vulcan” on Brass) about an aircraft.
Back in the 1940s there was a B29 Superfortress dubbed “Kee Bird” which made an emergency landing in Greenland.
The crew was evacuated but the bomber remained on ice until the 1990s.
Seeing that the cold had preserved this rare bird, a monumental effort was made to restore it in situ with the end goal being that this gleaming machine would be flown away from where it sat.
When the day came to take it to the air, an engine caught fire and burned the whole thing down.
I thought this was an interesting story in the pantheon of aviation tales.
We are highlighting some of the superb lyrics on Brass Camel (2026) all week long here at Progarchy.com, with commentary on each one of the album tracks.
Daniel Sveinson of Brass Camel (who does electric guitar and vocals) comments on the third track of the album:
I read a saying quoted to Churchill which poised:
“Never run when you can walk,
never walk when you can stand,
never stand when you can sit,
and never sit when you can lie down”.
I thought this was hilarious coming from someone who, faults aside, couldn’t be accused of being anything less than a highly-motivated individual.
I had a ear-worm of a Wurlitzer lick stuck in my head and started writing a song about absolutely doing the bare-minimum — because what is the damn point?
That became “Why Bother”.
Afterwards I got thinking “my goodness that’s a bleak tune, lyrically” and figured I should write a song with opposite sentiments.
Crown Lands has released track #4 today from their forthcoming album Apocalypse. Check out the audio track or the video version below.
While you are listening, read all about who Blackstar is in the concept album’s storyline by clicking over to our Progarchy interview with Crown Lands from a week ago.
What a fantastic bass line on the verses! And what a hard rockin’ chorus!
And is that the “By-Tor and the Snow Dog” voice introducing the guitar solo?!?
We are highlighting some of the superb lyrics on Brass Camel (2026) over the next few days here at Progarchy.com, with commentary on each one of the album tracks.
Daniel Sveinson of Brass Camel (who does electric guitar and vocals) comments on the second track of the album:
Coming second is “What Are You Going to Do” which is a song about environmental devastation.
I read Silent Spring way back in high school, used to sell wildlife photography, and can’t pass a moose on tour without slamming on the brakes to get a better look.
I love nature and it’s hard not to feel a sense of dread when you read about insect die-offs and rising ocean temperatures and general inaction — or worse, outright callous disregard — when it comes to various governments’ efforts to reign things in.
The full outer gatefold cover for the vinyl LP of Brass Camel (2026)
Over here at Progarchy, we have taken special note of how the new album Brass Camel (2026) is a masterclass in songwriting. Complementing the music on each track are outstanding lyrics. The album exhibits how the band has taken the songcraft to the highest possible standard by taking extra special care to compose the lyrics on this release. Therefore we would like to highlight some of these lyrical achievements over the next few days at Progarchy.com, with commentary on each one of the album tracks.
Daniel Sveinson of Brass Camel (who does electric guitar and vocals) comments on the first track of the album:
Starting off the album is “You’ve Got Time” which musically comes from imagining the Grateful Dead playing Rush and lyrically was written as a tonic to the third song on the album, “Why Bother? – the latter was described as a depression-anthem by the director of its coming music video, while the former is a hopeful song encouraging someone not to be too hard on themselves because life is hard and you’ve just got to, as The Proclaimers put it, do your best to do the best you can.
Relevant lyrics:
“Sometimes it’s tough to reconcile
constant forward motion with every day’s new trials
but if you feel the crush of exceptions and regrets
and obligations and deadlines
take a breath
worry not
you’ve got time
to mould the world you wish to see in your design
to watch the play unfolding up upon the stage
follow the script you had in mind”
These lyrics are highly reminiscent of Neil Peart at his most inspiring! Kudos to the Camel for this magnificent opening track.
Progarchy 