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.

Here’s Daniel Sveinson of Brass Camel (electric guitar and vocals) on the ninth track of the album, “Last Call”:

The darkest song on the album, and the simplest.

We have a tendency to pack in a lot of notes and chords and changes into our tracks, and I wanted to challenge myself to write a dead simple song — great excuse to lean into some big Oberheim chords if nothing else!

Lyrically it came about after reading about civil war in Syria.

I recalled having read Shelby Foote’s account of the U.S. civil war years ago (fascinating but long and dry), having watched Hotel Rwanda not long before.

One thing that stuck with me is the period of seeming inevitability in so many civil wars — where both politicians and the populace know that things are tense but don’t know just how quickly things will unravel when the last straws are plucked.

It’s a terrifying thing to think about and it inspired “Last Call.”

Relevant lyrics:

“Board the doors

there’s no-one left to trust

your neighbours wave to you at dawn

and cut you down by dusk

the lines are drawn

those old ties come apart

you give in to the hatred that festers in the dark

and you won’t see the life until it’s buried in your heart

last call

we’ll fade to black

the dream is dead

there is no turning back”

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.

Relevant lyrics:

“Don’t you recall feeling the breeze blow

watching the sky glow above the fog

burning timbers of the big house

looks like it’s lights out in the navy yard

two people of the same face

vying for the same place

but one don’t belong

effortless amalgamation

sabotage

infiltration

you should have known after the first time

that once again we’d draw a hard line

and slip right through your hands

catch us if you can”

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 AI and 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.

Relevant lyrics:

“There goes the genie

he’s off on his way

the papers said “get back in your bottle”

and he said “not today”

It’s mighty cramped

and you know there’s a chance

that Asimov’s in his grave spinning (the record)

cause you know that he approves

so how about you ignore the words

why don’t you get down with the groove?”

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

be careful what you wish for, Mrs Leeds“

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.