Hotly-tipped blues-rock duo Crown Lands have announced the details of their debut album. The self-titled release will hit stores on August 13, with pre-orders via Universal Music Canada available now.
The band, tipped by Classic Rock as one of 20 bands to shake up the 2020s, have also released a video for End Of The Road, a heartfelt tribute to lives lost on Yellowhead Highway 16 in British Columbia.
Referred to locally as the Highway of Tears, the 450-mile stretch of road between Prince George and Prince Rupert has been the location for more than 70 deaths or disappearances of women since 1970, many of them Indigenous.
"End of the Road is an outcry for awareness and action surrounding the colonial horrors of the missing and murdered Indigenous Womxn, Girls, and Two-Spirits that still haunt Indigenous communities today," says Crown Lands singer and drummer Cody Bowles. “Violence against Indigenous people is something I have witnessed firsthand throughout my life."
"I am half Mi’kmaw and grew up spending of a lot of my childhood in and around Alderville First Nation. I identify as Two-Spirit and dream of a better world for the brilliant Indigenous womxn, girls and 2SLGBTQ+ people who face adversity every day for their very existence.
"It’s up to all of us to make this world a better place for future generations, and this song is a small message of hope adding to the rising wave of Indigenous resistance throughout this land."
The video for End Of The Road was narrated by Canadian Inuk singer Tanya Tagaq, and choreographed by Teineisha Richards, a Mi'kmaq artist from Bear River First Nations, Nova Scotia.
"To create the choreography I had to go to a pretty deep and dark place and put myself in the shoes of both the women who went missing and the families of those women who suffered with their loss," says Richards. "I wanted to express the desperate feeling of someone fighting to escape, but with no redemption."
"Additionally, I aimed to generate a sense of self-empowerment and unity within a shared struggle, by my use of staccato, aggressive, and synchronised movement during the group sections of choreography. Most of the choreography derived from that dark, yet powerful place, and the overall message and feeling I received from the song."
Crown Lands was recorded in Nashville with producer Dave Cobb, best known for his work with Rival Sons, Europe, Lady Gaga, The Highwomen, Chris Stapleton, Sturgill Simpson and Jason Isbell.
"Dave pushed us to listen to ourselves and really trust our initial instinct with a song,” says Bowles.
Crown Lands tracklist
1. Spit It Out
2. River
3. Leadfoot
4. Howlin’ Back
5. End Of The Road
6. Forest Song
7. Sun Dance
