“Why aren’t punk bands saying the word ‘Palestine’ on their records?” asks Ceremony guitarist Andy Nelson on this album’s press release. It’s a fair point, too. When punk thrives on precision, it does a disservice to the most prominent humanitarian atrocity in recent memory to not put it in sharper focus. Thus, when the word is uttered on the track Madness, it leaps out a lot.
At the same time, assertions that Tell Me Your Dream has Ceremony reconnecting with their anarcho-punk roots can feel a little overstated. They’re way over the hill of the hardcore and powerviolence they began in, now more acclimated with post-punk and garage-rock in a Pitchfork-friendlier vein. There’s definitely a higher-end vibe that Ceremony give off and are unlikely to relent on now. It’s why Tell Me Your Dream’s ‘hardness’ is affixed with elements of Krautrock in some brittle production choices.
This is still good, though, and absolutely in character for a band who’d never dare to make the same album twice. After the new wave leanings of 2019’s In The Spirit World Now (and the awful, naval-gazing pop of guitarist Anthony Anzaldo’s Live From An Ordinary Place last year), Tell Me Your Dream feels robustly no-nonsense. Other Hells and Death Destruction Mayhem wear that the plainest, as their matted punk and garage-rock is decidedly free of frills. So much so, even, that no attempt is made to hide how breathless Ross Farrar can sound on the former, almost like he’s out of practice for quicker, more fierce material.
Granted, that’s also entirely part of the point. Tell Me Your Dream, stripped to its barest essentials, is a punk album, and carries itself with that knowledge. If there’s anywhere that Ceremony are going back to their early, radical thrust, it’s here—very taut, unembellished music built with its rawness in mind. An unopposed synth is the closest thing to a polished element on here, and even that’s still galaxies away. The pulsing little buzz on Antenna and the atonal hum at the back of Paradise are still perfectly suited to Ceremony’s palette on here. Tell Me Your Dream is already a colder, rigid listen, and that just adds to the effect.
It can also be deceptively catchy, though, and that arguably does the most for Ceremony here. They prove adept at splitting the difference between post-punk’s stoicism and the snappiness of ‘regular’ punk, melded together and averaged out into its own animal. The prominent bass from Justin Davis is imperative in shaping songs like Madness and Justify, feeling like the main instrument in both. Guitars aren’t mind-blowingly present but the likes of Prograde and Deep Down Where I Belong shave them down to firm, dried-out slides with a really appealing tone. Especially on the latter when accompanied by the skittish drums and bass, there’s a melodic foundation that’s so clear and uninhibited. Tell Me Your Dream as a whole works with that ‘less is more’ philosophy so well; for the kind of band that Ceremony are now, it does absolutely everything it needs to.
And that’s not to say that Tell Me Your Dream is a fully great album, either. For what it’s aiming towards, it can be a bit slight and hemmed-in of any ‘true’ punk intensity. At this stage, it’s made for the Ceremony fans who’ve stuck around alongside monumental genre shifts and are unlikely to jump ship now. That said, there’s still some accessibility and steadfastness gives Tell Me Your Dream an edge as an entry point. If nothing else, it’s another piece of one of modern post-punk’s most fascinating lineages that justifies its existence at almost every turn.
For fans of: Ought, Viagra Boys, Pissed Jeans
‘Tell Me Your Dream’ by Ceremony is released on 7th August on Relapse Records.
Words by Luke Nuttall
