Review Summary: Ceremony set aside their life of powerviolence and try their hand at post-punk
“Ceremony is a hardcore punk band from San Francisco, California that churns out some of the most aggressive music around today.” This is the description you are greeted with if you decide to check out Ceremony’s Sputnik page, and a few years ago it was an apt portrayal of the group’s hardcore/powerviolence past. However, if one were to stumble upon the band’s latest LP The L-Shaped Man and find this description, they might think they had selected the wrong Ceremony; this dismal attempt at post-punk resembles none of the edge and heaviness of the punk quintet’s former releases.
There’s nothing wrong with a band taking their sound in new and unexpected directions, but I do have a problem with taking a band performing in a genre where they seem to utilize ONLY the negative elements of said style. This is a break up album, more specifically, vocalist Ross Farrar’s break up album. It would be reasonable to assume that such an emotionally crushing circumstance would provide plenty of energy for an intensely negative and artistic shift; alas, we are left with what seems to be little more than a confused man doing half-baked Ian Curtis impressions, making songs either Joy Division made 35 years ago, or ones Interpol did a decade ago.
Farrar is at his best lyric-wise when he is his most honest, with himself and others. “Exit Fears” describes Farrar’s struggle with drinking after the break up in a second-person narrative; “Your Life in France” finds him using Icarus to mirror his bittersweet reflection on the beginning of their relationship. “Root of the World,” easily the best cut here, discusses the mutually assured destruction the relationship provided for the two. Unfortunately, this doesn’t last, and Farrar returns to melodramatic tropes of post-punk that express emotions closer to a teenage boy who’s been “friend-zoned” by the “cool,” “edgy” girl that wears an Unknown Pleasures shirt every day, than to full grown, emotionally devastated man.
The instrumentation doesn’t make any attempts to prop up Farrar’s spotty lyricism either. It’s as if they handed producer John Reis (of Rocket from the Crypt and Drive like Jehu fame) copies of Closer and Turn on the Bright Lights and said, “Here, make absolutely sure we never stray from this sound or make any attempt to further innovate on these concepts.” Spooky guitars, slightly fuzzy bass, and ominous drums dominate the record and don’t make the affair feel any less plastic. Farrar’s own performance is possibly the most dismal. The vocals sound as if he decided he was sick of hardcore, then forgot to make an attempt at getting another vocal style down. The greatest moment on the record is when he lets loose on “The Root of the World” and convinces you he means every word he’s written. Unfortunately, the uninspiring delivery throughout the rest of the album makes even the most sincere line feel like the poetry you wrote your freshman year of high school.
Even though I didn’t enjoy this record, I applaud Ceremony for trying to grow from their roots. Hopefully they’ll learn where that growth needs to lead for their next record.
