Metal, Hardcore, Indie, Rock
Ceremony—the seminal California-based punk band of Ross Farrar, Anthony Anzaldo, Andy Nelson, Justin Davis and Jake Casarotti—release the new single/video “Dark Summer” from their seventh album “Tell Me Your Dream”, out 7th August via Relapse. Following “Death Destruction Mayhem,” which Consequence says “takes the band’s developed and matured post-punk sound and reapplies it to the hardcore and punk rock that motivated their earliest work,” “Dark Summer” is a jet-black post-punk rumination.
On the track, Farrar says: “In Rock ‘n Roll music, feedback occurs when a guitar is purposely moved too close to an amplifier – like a dark summer – when dread finds you amid brilliant sunshine, it feels disorienting, confusing, and chaotic. What you’re left with is malaise, doldrums of sorts that are both beautiful and terrifying.”
“Tell Me Your Dream” reunites Ceremony with producer John Reis, a punk lifer whose eclectic noisemaking in Rocket from the Crypt, Hot Snakes and other legendary bands runs in parallel to Ceremony’s multitudes. After working on Ceremony’s acclaimed 2015 album, “The L-Shaped Man”, Reis maintains a unique perspective on the quintet — as a hardcore punk band, as participants in the greater California rock-and-roll tradition, and as friends. “John sort of joined the band on this one,” says guitarist-keyboardist Anzaldo. “We could not respect him more as a guitarist, as a singer, as a songwriter. He understands what it’s like to be in every position. So we really gave him the keys.”
“Tell Me Your Dream” is a reflection of the enduring sense of trust forged within the band. This is no surprise considering Ceremony’s roots date all the way back to a grade-school friendship between Anzaldo and Farrar. “We’re bound together like family,” says Anzaldo. “Our relationships are beyond the band. Ceremony is going to live no matter what. We’ve shifted into this dynamic where the choice isn’t ours anymore.”
Deep connections in a shallow world. A clear sense of purpose in uncertain times. These are the reasons Ceremony continues to grow, to expand, to adapt, to endure. This band can’t stop. And it won’t. To meet the moment, you have to be there for it.
On the heel of back to back weekends playing Coachella earlier this year, Ceremony’s North American tour will kick off September 9th in Montreal, and see stops in Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, Austin, and more throughout the fall.
“Tell Me Your Dream” album artwork
“Tell Me Your Dream” tracklist:
Across two decades, Ceremony have earned their standing as one of punk’s most adaptable and unflinching bands, always ready to meet the moment without surrendering its principles. True to form, “Tell Me Your Dream” pushes the group’s punk-forged intensity all the way to the fore, capturing the quintet at its most expressive, most expansive, and most timely.
Ferociously alert, “Tell Me Your Dream” contains ten songs of searing breadth. That means everything from bristling hardcore to post-punk — all while taking fundamental inspiration from Discharge, Crass, and other anarcho-punk troupes that first helped certain members of Ceremony find their own political voices back when they were teenagers.
