Tucked under the various layers of Coachella’s dark energy over the past two weekends (Bieber’s laptop, Sabrina’s reaction, influencer’s vice grip, The Strokes’ condemnation, Olivia’s cameo, your Ozempic diet) were a pair of late-day sets from CEREMONY. Now the California punk band returns with its first new song in five years, a punchy hardcore ripper called “Other Hells.” The growling track dropped yesterday and clocks in at 126 seconds, though it feels way longer through the first few listens. Perhaps its the duality at play. “‘Other Hells’ started as a meditation on the dualistic arts and the interplay of opposing forces in our lives: Awake/asleep, physical/spiritual, inhale/exhale,” says vocalist Ross Farrar. “This is a constant theme in the work of CEREMONY; beauty juxtaposed with the intensity of aggressive music, seeking to create a single, cohesive work through audible, visual, and structural elements. Amid the ongoing rise in politics that lean on tribalism and polarizing rhetoric in an attempt to divide, the song responds by aiming to unify, using punk’s great liberatory force: The slam.”
Credit: Greg Noire