Photo Credit: Rick Rodney
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Ceremony are back with their most driving, intelligent collection of songs to date. In the Spirit World Now marks a milestone for the legendary Californian punk outfit who have stayed true to themselves as songwriters throughout massive sonic growth throughout their long, storied career.
It sees Ceremony take another step into a space they can truly call their own, as one of punk’s most unique and forward-thinking bands.
Ceremony‘s lead guitarist Anthony Anzaldo doesn’t want to talk about the fact that his band has been around for over ten years. Or that they’ve drifted away from the hardcore genre that made them, or that they jumped ship from their long-time label, Matador Records, to join Relapse Records instead. Or that their sixth album will mark four years since the iconic punk band has released any new material. These things aren’t really important. What matters is that In the Spirit World Now is Ceremony‘s most visceral and hard hitting record yet.
Produced by Will Yip (Title Fight, Circa Survive, Turnover) and mixed by engineer Ben Greenberg (The Men, Pharmakon, Hank Wood And The Hammerheads), In the Spirit World Now grows with each listen, balancing Yip’s pop sensibilities with Greenberg’s noise-punk influence through dramatic, shining synthesizer hooks and a mature vocal strategy.
Drummer Jake Casarotti and bassist Justin Davis power through the 11-tracks as a strong yet sparse backbone that interlocks with guitarists Andy Nelson and Anzaldo to create a pop-centric, post-punk canvas for frontman Ross Farrar to expel the most vulnerable parts of himself.
Farrar, who has been studying and teaching at the Syracuse University MFA Poetry Program for the past three years, has found himself as a vocalist on Spirit World, not only sounding more confident and in the pocket than he ever has before, but exploring amorphous lyrical territory about arrested development, botched relationships, and the never-ending hamster wheel of self-destruction so many creatives fall into.
In the Spirit World Now sees Ceremony at the height of their creative output, as the always-evolving Rohnert Park quintet take various influences from post punk and rock to create one of the summer’s most compelling and infectious records. It’s out today on Relapse. For more info or to purchase, go here. Ceremony hit the road this weekend playing record release shows tonight in SF and LA tomorrow before the rest of the North America. They’ve also confirmed an EU / UK run in the fall.