CEREMONY

New album, “Tell Me Your Dream”, out on August 7th!

CEREMONY—the seminal California-based punk band of Ross Farrar, Anthony Anzaldo, Andy Nelson, Justin Davis and Jake Casarotti—announce their seventh album, Tell Me Your Dream, via Relapse.

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.

The result is a culmination of the band’s 21 years together: CEREMONY knows how to make a return-to-form sound like evolution — and vice versa, as evidenced by today’s anthemic post-punk track, “Death Destruction Mayhem.” The single follows “Other Hells,” which Revolver says “leans into the more street punkin’, gob-spittin’ edge of the band’s Rohnert Park era.”

“Tell me your dream in a time when intimacy and vulnerability seem neglected. Tell me your dream when reciprocity has become a contract. Tell me your dream when they ask, ‘What do you do?’ Something untrained by the mind that sparks inspiration.” – Ross Farrar

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.

Ceremony