Ceremony

In The Spirit World Now

Image of Ceremony - In The Spirit World Now

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Ceremony make their Relapse Records debut with their highly ambitious new album, 'In the Spirit World Now'! The album 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. "In the Spirit World Now" is full of layered sonic fury and anxiety, each song building up to a point and then descending down through a militant, catchy hook. “Turn Away the Bad Thing” sets the tone, guitars climbing around the driving bass line, as Ross Farrar sings, “It’s getting harder for me to be alright/Eyes adjusting to the dark/The momentum of all these last resorts built inside of me.” Songs like “Presaging the End” and “Calming Water” feel romantic and distressed, while “Further I Was” and “Years of Love” are driven by Farrar’s rebellious energy as he repeats the hook with a deadpan realness. “Years of love can be forgotten/In the hatred of a day.” But the true stand-out is the title track, “In the Spirit World Now”, a haunting pop gem with a sticky chorus and lead synth riff that plants itself in your head as Farrar chants the track’s name over and over like a mantra. “In the Spirit World Now" is a sort of nebulous and ectoplasmic place where things may not be quite what they seem,” he says. “It means sh*t is about to get weird.” The album marks a milestone for this Northern California punk outfit who have stayed true to themselves as songwriters throughout massive sonic growth throughout their storied career.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: From the fractured art-punk aesthetic of Wire or even bits of Sonic Youth, through wide-spanning cinematic shoegaze majesty and grungy snarling anthems, Ceremony have crafted a brilliantly varied and thoroughly enthralling collection of snappy punk anthems mixed with a huge variety of influences.

TRACK LISTING

1. Turn Away The Bad Thing
2. In The Spirit World Now
3. Further I Was
4. /
5. Presaging The End
6. Say Goodbye To Them
7. We Can Be Free
8. //
9. Years Of Love
10. Never Gonna Die Now
11. I Want More
12. From Another Age
13. ///
14. Calming Water

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