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. 

Relevant lyrics:

“The stars trace new horizons

the midnight sun slowly rises

and then it sets again

the ice alive with ancient laughter

now and then and ever after

and it hasn’t changed since I can’t tell you when

a test of the heart and mind

where the weak get left behind

but despite what you’ve been told

we wouldn’t change it for the world”

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.

Relevant lyrics:

“I don’t walk under no ladders

toss no salt to watch it scatter

who knows if it even matters

but why take a chance when we have the shot

to let loose a juggernaut

shiny silver ’29

you can’t say we didn’t try”

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.

That led to the album opener, “You’ve Got Time.”

Relevant lyrics from “Why Bother”:

“Waiting rooms

and dead tunes

playing on repeat

in your head

and the same goes

out there on the streets

when everyone you meet says “it’s no life”

you climb the hill until you reach the top

once you’re there you look around

and wish that you had stopped

to smell the roses that bloomed along the way

they’ve all wilted

their beauty has spoiled

for you had bills to pay”

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. 

Relevant lyrics;

“They filled the marshes to build you malls

and in them sold you a world of pain

and so the buzzard smiles atop the post

waiting to pick apart your remains

the choice is yours to make

if your head’s not in the cloud

what are you going to do about it, now?”

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.

Fun fact: The album credits to Brass Camel (2026) say, “Mixed by Terry Brown at Moron Heights” which happens to be the name of Terry’s new mix studio — making a funny punning reference to the famous site of so many classic Rush albums: Le Studio, Morin-Heights, Quebec.

Daniel Sveinson of Brass Camel (who does electric guitar and vocals) speaks to us about what it was like to have Terry Brown as the mix engineer for the band’s latest album, Brass Camel (2026):

Engineer on Jimi Hendrix’s Axis Bold as Love, producer and mixer of every Rush album in that legendary run from Fly by Night through Signals and possibly the nicest phone manner of anyone I’ve talked with — it was an absolute honour to work with Terry Brown for the mixing of this record.

[Our producer and engineer] Kevin [Comeau] has known Terry for years and introduced us via email at some point during the recording process. We were immediately intrigued about the possibility of having Terry mix the record for us.

Even more so than our love of Rush and the obvious cool-factor of his association with our favourite Rush records, it was the idea of working with someone who had mixed incredible records at a time when there may have been a slightly different philosophy about what the end product should sound like.

Hopefully this approach isn’t self-sabotage, but frankly I don’t give a damn if we’re ‘competitive’ when played alongside, say, The Glorious Sons. Sure, we’d love radio or mover-shaker playlist placement, but given the statistical unlikeliness of ‘making it’ in the industry the biggest motivator I’ve got for making records is to make something I’d want to listen to on my own time.

And I like natural sounding recordings. You still get that with jazz and folk and bluegrass but with rock and prog so much is done in post-production nowadays that it very rarely scratches the auditory itch that, say, Moving Pictures or Feats Don’t Fail Me Now does.

While that modern school of mixing has its place and perks, we felt that despite Ben Kaplan doing an incredible job of giving us a punchy modern-rock mix, our first two albums didn’t necessarily reflect what we sound like when you hear us live.

We wanted to mix the third album in a way where what you’re hear is essentially what we recorded. We wanted to go more natural with this one and Terry’s approach of “let’s mix it — not fix it” sounded like exactly what we were after.

We got started and it was a such a treat to work with him, largely over the phone, to achieve the mix we were after. Terry’s got a great sense of humour and every chat on the phone is a pleasure — he’s got fabulous insight drawn from experience and when he makes a mixing decision he’s always got a good reason for it.

It didn’t take too long to get things sounding just the way we wanted and then it was off for mastering (done by João Carvalho in Toronto).

It is still a trip to read “mixed by Terry Brown” in the liner notes!

Crown Lands appeared on the music scene with EPs in 2016 and 2017 and then an impressive 2020 debut LP. They won a Juno award in 2021 for Breakthrough Group of the Year and were also nominated for Rock Album of the Year. The year 2021 was a dazzling revelation of their love of Rush, as Crown Lands released the seven-minute single “Context: Fearless, Part 1” (along with a tribute to Neil Peart) and also the White Buffalo EP, which contains the epic 13-minute long-form track, “The Oracle.” In 2023, the stunning LP Fearless cemented their status as prog titans. In 2024, they were again nominated for a Juno award for Rock Album of the Year. Now their follow-up prog LP, Apocalypse, is about to be released in May 2026. To find out more about the thrilling sci-fi/fantasy story unfolding across the records, Progarchy recently had a chat with Cody Bowles, who is drummer and vocalist with Crown Lands. A transcription of our April 15 talk follows below.

I see you’re wearing your Rush T-shirt. I thought I’d wear my Crown Lands White Buffalo shirt.

Hey, I love it. Yes, I can’t help it. It was just a perfect occasion.

Well, it’s good to meet you. Huge fan. Fell in love with your music instantly. And so we’re very excited to hear about the new record. We asked the record company to send us an advance copy, if they have it. But so far, we’ve only heard the two tracks on Bandcamp.

Yeah, we are so thrilled that this thing is coming out. We worked so hard on this and I think it’s by far and away like the most complex and lovely piece of music we put out, honestly, to date. We really pushed ourselves on it.

Well, I was thrilled to hear “Apocalypse” when it was suddenly announced, to my surprise, because I fell in love with your music when I heard “Context” and “Starlifter” and “The Oracle.” To hear long-form pieces of such high quality! Well, I mean, that’s what we live for at Progarchy.

Okay!

But when the Fearless album came out, I was excited that suddenly my favorite songs became the shorter songs. Songs like “The Shadow” and “Lady of the Lake.”

That’s so cool.

So I’m curious what the new album is like. Are the other tracks shorter in length? Do they resemble the ones I mentioned on the earlier album, or are there some new surprises?

Yeah, it’s actually funny you say that because we actually do have a number of shorter songs on this upcoming release. Just to contrast with the large side-long piece. As it goes, you know, if in a perfect world, we would have multiple long pieces and short songs, but we kind of envision our albums with vinyl in mind. So, we have a limitation for how long a side can be. But yeah, “Apocalypse” is the big one. And then we have some shorter, shorter companion pieces surrounding that. But they’re pretty densely packed.

I love that you limit yourself with the vinyl discipline: “This has to fit on a vinyl.” Because I think too many bands end up boring us, by stuffing too many tracks on a CD. Whereas that discipline to create an artistic whole, well, it’s something we know and love from our favorite albums in the past. But I love how you’ve taken up the torch of: “We want to tell a story, as well as create beautiful music.” Could you tell our readers a little bit more about what the story is, not just on this album, but tying together the other albums?

I would be delighted. So where would you like me to start? With this album, or from the beginning?

Let’s start with this album. What’s the story on Apocalypse?

Yeah, so the story of Apocalypse tells the tale of the rise of the Syndicate, who are this intergalactic, space-faring conquerors and warlords, led by the right hand of the Syndicate, Blackstar, who serves as the villain and the antithesis to everything that Fearless, our hero, stands for. 

It talks about the Syndicate’s conquest of the planet Karagon, which is Fearless’s home world, and its fight against the native Ebonflight, who are dragon riding, space dragon riding, might I add, people who have lived there for thousands of years and they fought many different threats on their own planet. 

But when this intergalactic force comes and threatens their existence, they give it their all, but they are ultimately crushed by this force, all while Fearless in the timeline of this story is sleeping and is kind of like in this hibernation under the water. And so they take all the resources from the planet and they take all these spoils of war from the Ebonflight they’ve defeated and they head back home to their home world. 

And on the journey back home, there is a fight that breaks out on the home planet, and the reinforcements that they meet, rendezvous with on the way back, they start infighting between themselves, fighting over the hordes of, you know, these spoils of war. And it tears them apart and on back home, the Syndicate is like this ideology that kind of supersedes the government. I’m writing a lot about this right now, so tell me if it’s too much!

It’s not too much, keep going!

Okay, cool. So this, so this ideology, this rogue ideology, supersedes the government and this, it’s like everyone becomes radicalized to the Syndicate, and they want to, instead of changing the way they rule their world, they want to take resources from outside of their own planet and bring it to their own at the cost of life and other people’s sovereignty and resources. 

And so the Syndicate is kind of born to what we kind of know it as in Starlifter, through this apocalypse. 

And so when Blackstar gets back home, he finds that all of this war that he’s waged outside abroad has come back to himself and come back to his own planet and has affected him personally. He finds his wife and his family is destroyed and everything he knew and loved is gone as he once knew it. 

And so it’s not an apocalypse of only one planet, Fearless’s planet. It’s also an apocalypse of his own world and the whole viewpoint of, you know, there’s this whole message through Apocalypse where we talk about hate begets hate and violence begets violence. And it’s like this cautionary tale. 

And so we end it by kind of hinting that there is a glimmer of hope in the world yet. Fearless will rise in the stars above, is kind of one of the last lyrics that we say in Apocalypse. And it’s just hinting at Fearless kind of still being there as this force of good, this force of hope that has the potential to change the world. And then we end it with this arpeggiated sequence that harmonically goes directly into “Starlifter: Fearless, Part 2,” if you were to play them back-to-back. So it serves as a prequel, direct prequel to “Fearless, Part 2.”

Okay, so that makes sense. I remember reading some of it online. I love your description of it because we know who the bad guys are in the beginning: the colonizers. But then as the story unfolds, I hear you describing it this way: that the colonizers aren’t just extracting value from elsewhere; this whole cultural model is how they’re destroying themselves. So this is actually a parable for our times. I confess that on Fearless, I didn’t follow the story. I just understood the music as my source of delight.

Yeah. Yeah, of course. Yeah. Yeah.

Now that we’ve established the prequel, what happens on the Fearless album and what else do you have planned in further musical adventures? And I’ll just confess my interest in this parable. I think that to stop the apocalypse that we’re living through, where the colonizers are destroying the whole planet, there needs to be a return to reverence for the planet. There needs to be learning from contemplative spiritual traditions. For example, the indigenous people who have lived with the planet so long and didn’t cultivate this extractive model.

I agree. Yeah.

So sorry for the long preface, but my question is: How does the story continue on Fearless? (I’m sorry I missed it.) And what more do you have planned for the future?

Yeah, ohh no, it’s OK. I love these questions and thank you for asking them, honestly. I do agree with you, just to preface. Yeah, I agree. We do need to return to this kind of love and appreciation for the world that we have and the resources we have and to kind of look at it and change our framework from which we operate. To be more sustainable. 

But to answer your question, the story of Fearless begins with Fearless awakening from the prior song, “The Oracle,” where he is kind of lured to chase this destiny that he is told by this old sage to go on this mission and this quest. And of course, an oracle speaks always in half-truths. 

And so they kind of like, they tell him what he needs to do in order to achieve his goal, in order to attain his ambition. But there is a cost, there is always a hidden cost. And so his ship that he’s on capsizes and he falls down into the ocean and he’s drowning. And, in this world, we have this goddess kind of character, kind of embodying the spirit of nature. Her name’s River. 

And she kind of imbues him with this power of her power. The power of nature is infused, kind of within him. And as she imbues him with his power in the song of “The Oracle,” he is entombed in this kind of case of ice, this never melting ice, and under the ocean. And there he slumbers for hundreds of years. 

And then when he awakens in “Fearless, Part 2,” he comes out and the oceans that were once there are now just barren desert. And he can see, as far as he can see, he sees just desolation and pure, pure just absence of life where there was once rife with vegetation and jungle and his people. And so he looks out and he sees this giant tower in the distance. 

And it’s what we call a space fountain, which is kind of like this tower that goes from the ground into space. And they have these, like, giant machines, these whirring sentinels that are whirring by through the canyons and scavenging, almost kind of like you imagine like the Matrix and those machines and how they kind of proliferate and they have this very oppressive nature to them. 

And so he’s kind of imbued with this almost supernatural power. He’s lived far beyond his mortal coil. And he’s almost like this demi-god kind of character. And so he makes it his mission to kind of find out what is going on and to destroy these things, because he feels it is inherited evil, right? And he kind of has this feeling like everyone he’s known and loved is gone. 

So he makes it his mission: he makes his way toward this fortress where this spire is looming and he sneaks into this tower. He goes up to the top and there’s these things called Starlifters, which are the vehicles by which the Syndicate exercises its plan by stealing the power of the sun and harnessing it for itself, ferrying it away to their planet so they can fuel their own stuff for their own corporate greed or whatever it is. 

And he connects with this machine. He finds that there’s one machine there and it’s all automated. It’s all AI. And he finds one machine kind of transcended this: this program, and it is aware; it is self-aware. And he connects with it telepathically using his own sort of super, superhuman powers. And he, he becomes one with this machine. 

He merges with the machine in a sense to kind of understand what is going on. He learns everything that is going on. He learns that these things are being used as a tool for extraction and for war. And this sentient consciousness that is created, that emerges from it, is commensurate with all of this Starlifters. 

And so what he does is there is a sort of Dyson sphere built around the sun in the story of Fearless. And it’s said in the first kind of verse of the song. And so what he does is he takes the commensurate consciousness of the Starlifters and makes it his mission to dismantle the Dyson sphere. 

But during this whole thing, the Syndicate catches on and sends like a battalion to intercept Fearless. And so Fearless becomes all of the Starlifters and they’re fighting this giant war. And through this whole conundrum, there’s a giant, there’s a great sound that is emitted. And the sound is so great that it tears a fabric through space and it creates a black hole and it threatens to destroy everything and everybody. 

And so what Fearless does is he takes the Starlifters, these vehicles that are able to interact with the sun and extract the power of the sun directly, and he uses all of them to dismantle the Dyson sphere and flies headlong into the black hole. And that’s…

I caught that much because of the musical allusion in “Starlifter” to A Farewell to Kings, “Cygnus X-1,” which is, you know, very cleverly done at the end of the song. So, I knew that someone was going into a black hole at the end. But everything you just described is that one song?

Yes, that’s that one song.

Which to me is incredible that you have this imaginative vision that sustains the music you’re creating. It explains why I found it to be so substantial. What happens on the rest of the album?

Well, thank you. Yeah, so on Fearless, you know, it was the first time we had done something so intense. I mean, we did with “The Oracle” as well. But like, we decided that it would only be the one side; the others, the other album, the other songs on the record, except for “Lady of the Lake,” doesn’t tie into the greater story of the Fearless chronology, like “The Shadow,” “Citadel.” But “Lady of the Lake” does, and it talks about the time, like in the very ancient past, where this goddess, this River goddess, is worshipped and this great temple is being constructed. And they fight against, the Ebonflight are fighting against this ancient evil on their own planet.

Okay, so some songs tie into this storyline and some stand apart. If I’m following, we’ve got “Apocalypse,” “The Oracle,” “Star Lifter: Fearless, Part 2,” and “Lady of the Lake.” What about “Context: Fearless, Part 1”?

Yeah, so “Context” was our first foray into this whole thing. And yes, it sort of, to give you an answer, it sort of does. It doesn’t quite make sense with the greater story, because we didn’t really know what we were doing back then in terms of the story. We just knew we wanted to paint a picture, we wanted to make a story. But it talks more about these travelers coming to a planet where music is kind of lost and they kind of reestablish music, at least in the music video that we created for “Context.” We have the character The Oracle, in it, for example. She’s in the music video, but we don’t really talk about her in the music itself. And so that was kind of when we were still finding our footing and how we wanted to tell this tale.

Well, that’s okay. It still makes sense to me. I mean, you call it “Fearless, Part 1,” and symbolically, it’s about the loss of music, trying to find the lost music. That’s a symbolic encapsulation of this larger story that you’re giving me the details about. I mean, it harkens back to “2112”: finding the lost guitar. And it’s a wonderful symbol: this music, if we discover it, it’s going to be the way that we avoid this destructive cultural action that’s consuming everything. So, thank you for the explanation. What do you have planned for albums beyond this?

Yeah. Totally. Yeah. I love that question too. Good thing you asked. Well, I just created, I just finished the story for the next record. So we have that down and it’s going to be a sequel to Fearless. And it’s going to culminate in a ridiculous conclusion, I think, to this trilogy that we have going on. And I feel like it might either be, it either might be the end or the beginning of a new story. We deal with different topics this time. It’s going more into an abstract space, of kind of like COPAS or like cycles and like pattern recognition and it’s very progressive music and it’s got this element that’s more angular and we have, we have electric drums being used, and Chapman Sticks and like we’re going to some really strange places, but thematically.

So you go King Crimson on the next one.

Very King Crimson, yes. And it’s like interlocking and interlacing polyrhythms, which is really fun. But it deals with, like, time, and what is beyond time, and what in, like, in what destiny is, and free will, and that’s the struggle between the two.

That’s wonderful. So when you say you have it written, what are you doing? Are you writing like a treatment for a movie screenplay, and this treatment is just a short summary, in some Word document somewhere?

Yeah, so I have a very extensive document on my computer that has, it’s almost like an offline Wikipedia with hyperlinks and everything, of everything of this whole world. Because I’m writing a Dungeons and Dragons-esque two campaigns surrounding this lore. So for the record, I’ve made it my own document for it and I’ve written out absolutely everything. The story arc and character arcs for each character. Blackstar and Fearless obviously will meet and face off toe to toe. Um…

But, like, I’ve just kind of written this whole treatment, and then I pitch it to Kevin, and then he kind of makes a tweak or two. And then we kind of scrap over what it should be and we elaborate, extrapolate on it. And then I kind of come back and I update it. And then we write the music and then I make the lyrics over top, to fit the narrative that we want to say.

This is amazing to learn of this level of detail that you have offline that, you know, no one’s seen except you and Kevin. It seems to me that you could do more with it than just musical storytelling. In addition to the musical artwork, I feel you were suggesting it could be a role-playing game.

Thanks. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, my request would be, can it be turned into a novel? If you don’t want to write the novel, can you give your treatment to someone who’s a novelist, who’s written sci-fi novels, who could work with this? Because I feel like those of us who have just been listening to the music so far would benefit from a novelization of this epic storyline.

Well, good. It’s cool that you mentioned that. Outside of Crown Lands, I’m a writer and I’ve been working on my own unique fantasy world for 14 years now. I even created my own language, spoken language for it. Yeah, so I have a book series that I’m actually working on right now and I’ve been working on it.

Wow. You’re like the prog rock Tolkien.

Yeah, that’s like the greatest compliment I’ve ever had. But yeah, so I’m really deep into it right now. And then when we wanted to do this stuff, we started doing this stuff. Kevin was like, why don’t we use your world and what you’re making? And I was like, no, no, no, this is, this kind of has to be separate. Something I pour myself into outside of music.

But as for a novelized treatment, that’s something that I would love to make one day. But we’re working with, we’re talking to some people about possibly bringing it to the comic format, visual novel, graphic novel format. And I’ll be writing an extensive campaign, maybe make a whole, like, module and lore book.

And then from there, we’ll see. The sky’s the limit. But I do have a lot. The thing is, it’s like, there’s so much to juggle. You know, it’s like we have to make the next record. We’re always making music. And then outside of that, we have these D&D things, which do take a lot of time.

And then writing my own story. I’m also working on a solo record, which is really fun. And things like that. So there’s not enough time. I wish there was so much more to that.

I know. Well, whenever you find inspiration strikes, just pursue it because what you’re doing is so beautiful. And I’m thrilled, I didn’t know this, I’m thrilled to hear you’re doing a solo record. I have to say I love your voice. It’s very unique. Of course, it’s going to remind people of Geddy Lee and Robert Plant.

Thank you.

And yet you have your own voice, right? Even though you have your inspirations, you have your own voice that I think is just beautiful to listen to.

Thank you so much. I really appreciate that. And I take those comparisons, you know, as a badge of honor. It’s obvious that I was very inspired by these people and their voices and the way they approached melody, et cetera. But I definitely don’t want to copy them, right? And you got to put your own spin on it. And I definitely do. Yeah. And I appreciate you seeing that.

Well, I love how you wear your influences. You establish your prog credibility with these long-form pieces. But then the lovely achievement on these shorter works of art — the new song, the short song, “Through the Looking Glass”! You must be proud that you’ve done something new and special there, because to me, it sounds even better than those songs, the short songs I fell in love with on Fearless: “The Shadow,” and “Lady of the Lake.”

Yeah, thank you. I feel like, I feel like we’re always pushing ourselves to just kind of one-up ourselves from the last work. You know, like I’m very much an artist. I’m always looking forward. I never look backward. I’m like, I’m so done with whatever we put out. I want to push myself further, make it more interesting, more exciting.

And every song we approach has, like, its own — we almost treat it like it has its own personality, its own sonic identity. And I’m really proud of that one.

Tell me a little bit more about these languages you’ve invented. Sorry for the nerdy question, but I’m interested in languages. I’m curious, where did you go for inspiration to invent your own languages?

Wow, I love this. I love this so much. I’m obsessed with linguistics. Honestly, just my own nerdy interest. I started obviously with Tolkien and Sindarin and Quenya. And I got deep into that and I was like, wow, someone did it. It’s possible. This is amazing. And then I looked.

So my wife, she’s from Morocco and she’s Moroccan and Indonesian and I love those languages. I myself am part Moroccan. So I was getting more in touch with that and I was inspired by dialects because as you might know, there’s a lot of dialects and in Morocco, there’s a dialect called Darija, which is a mixture of the local Amazigh, Spanish, French, and Arabic. And it’s kind of like this wild amalgamation that you can’t really teach in a school, but you learn it and you speak it. And so I was really inspired by grammatical tendencies in that language.

I also studied Mandarin quite a bit. And so, yes, I really love, really love that language. My best friend, he’s Taiwanese, and I grew up kind of around that and with him. And I just have this, always had this really beautiful love for language and how you use such a different part of your brain when you are kind of thinking in different languages. And so for this world that I’m creating, I was like, the deepest thing I think I could do is to create a language because I’m obsessed with creating convincing cultures that feel like they could be real. And I have this culture, they’re called the Kaldur, and they worship fire.

And they worship this season of fire where the the Aurora Australis kind of rains down from the sky in these shards of specks of flame. And these people worship it because it helps them in the desert. It’s kind of what activates the plant that bears water. And so I wanted a I wanted a language that centered around that. And I was inspired a lot — I speak fluently in French — I was inspired by some French, Mandarin, and Arabic. And I was very inspired by those. And a little bit of grammar from Mongolian. 

And I kind of was looking up everything. And I was just, I’m such a nerd. I was looking up everything I could on these languages and linguistics, and I self-taught as much as I could, and I created this language called Eltazar. And it’s called like the language of the tongue of the God King, because this kind of ruled by this character called the God King who wields this living God as this crown on its head.

So I have this whole language that I’ve created and I’ve went through all of the syntax, the everything you pronounce, the phonetic alphabet, and all the rules, the grammar, and it’s fully speakable now, which is really cool. 

But it took me a couple of years. And it’s still obviously a constant work in progress, but I’m a massive linguist nerd and I would love to learn it for real. You know, like I feel like I’ve been learning it only through whatever I’ve consumed, but I would love to learn with the teacher sometime.

I think it would be great if you could include bits of it in the album art or in the lyrics and liner notes, just as special Easter eggs for people who are your fans. We want to learn about this world that you’ve created in whatever detail you choose to share with us over time. As I say, it adds extraordinary depth and satisfaction to the whole experience of the artwork. But we’re out of time. Thank you so much for joining us today. Everyone at Progarchy truly appreciates it. We’re looking forward to the new album on May 15th. Your record company is…

Inside Out.

So we’ll be looking for the CD and the vinyl from Inside Out, and merch on the band’s website. Are you going to have those lovely gatefold-sized booklets with art and storytelling from the album again?

You know, I wasn’t sure how people felt about it. And so we never had thought about doing one for Apocalypse until there was another interviewer, I think a couple of weeks back, that mentioned the same thing. And I was like, I turned to Kevin and I was like, oh my gosh, we have to do this. We have to do this again because I guess people like it. I had no idea.

Oh yeah, like when I learned of it, I was like, okay, I have to collect that. So I got that, and the T-shirts, and the merch, and all the rest. So yes, please keep doing it. The fans want collectibles because when you have the beautiful artwork, you want it in your life in as many different ways as possible.

Yeah. Okay. Of course, well, I’m gonna get on the label about that to make that happen. Yeah.

Okay, thanks. And I’m so pleased to have this special interview with the Tolkien of Prog Rock. Thanks again, Cody.

Yeah, thank you so much. That means a lot. Thank you.

Aubrey Ellefson of Brass Camel (who does keyboards and vocals) speaks to us about the making of the band’s latest album, Brass Camel (2026):

This self-titled record represents both a consolidation of the band’s previous strengths, and an evolution in other ways. For starters, this is the first album of material entirely written during the tenure of the current lineup – even the previous album Camel, recorded with the full five-piece, still contained much material conceived during more primordial stages of the project. Second of all, the mix gets a decidedly more old-school treatment this time as we had the honour of getting Terry Brown of Rush production fame on board. Nevertheless, we see this as a culmination of a loose three-album cycle that firmly establishes what we’re about, as evidenced by the cheeky progression of titles “Brass,” “Camel,” and finally “Brass Camel.”

I’d say we have a funny relationship with the concept of “prog” – some of our influences closest to our hearts are unabashedly classic progressive rock giants such as Genesis, Rush, Yes, Gentle Giant et al., but we also don’t necessarily want to pigeonhole ourselves, and there’s nothing on this latest one like the 11-minute monsters that open and close the last album. We’d say this new one is both more and less prog than our previous work, whatever that means, and despite the more conventional track lengths, there’s some of our zaniest bits yet, and more willingness to dabble with different styles and textures. There’s some of the most overt funk yet on some tracks, as well as more electronic textures on others, and even a real harpsichord! No acoustic guitars allowed yet, though. (Maybe in the future; we’ll never tell!) We’ll probably always do a certain amount of shredding, odd time signatures, and crazy song forms, but in the end we just want to make interesting rock music that’s enjoyable for everyone, whatever that means for a group of guys with a perpetual case of zoomies like ourselves.

Another difference this time was in the recording process itself – rather than booking studio time in our hometown of Vancouver again, we teamed up with Kevin Comeau of Ontario-based band Crown Lands and recorded the bulk of the album during a cross-Canada tour at a beautiful studio out in the country called the Chalet. This really allowed us to eat, sleep, and breathe music and keep the creative juices flowing in a way that’s just not possible at home with the usual day-to-day distractions.

One goal this time was for the lyrical content to be more central to the creative process. Not to throw any of our older material under the bus, and plenty of our older material does have something to say if you read between the lines, but this time we wanted to avoid feeling like anything was a collection of riffs with lyrics as an afterthought. Each track here explores a specific concept or story, from the legend of the Jersey Devil, to a dramatic narration of the Titan submersible disaster, to tackling the can of worms that is AI vs. the creative process, and many more.

We’ve also never made a music video up until this point, and as of this writing we’ve now shot four! Almost in the same spirit of having a strong conceptual framework for the songs, it turns out it’s a lot of fun to come up with silly ideas for videos and figure out how to make them happen. When you’re a band who spends as much time as we have together, including four proper tours being joined at the hip almost 24/7, our natural chemistry and sense of humour takes on a life of its own, and we might as well stick a camera in front of that and hope the general public is as amused as we are.