Blood Ceremony Announce New Album The Old Ways Remain Due May 5
Been a while since the last word from Blood Ceremony, but the Toronto-based classic heavy prog rockers aren’t at all unwelcome as they announce that in addition to heading to Europe in May to tour alongside Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats, hitting Desertfest London, Soulstone Gathering, Desertfest Berlin and assorted sure-to-be-packed dates between them, the band will at last follow-up 2016’s Lord of Misrule with their fourth album, The Old Ways Remain.
Some of those old ways include, apparently, self-recording, which the four-piece ended up doing after their plan to abscond to London (where they’d done Lord of Misrule) hit the brick wall of global pandemic like so much else at the outset of this decade. How fortunate we are that everything is fine now, right? Right? And all we have to worry about are the oceans rising up to swallow us and our children’s children? Right? Right? Hashtag ‘blessed’.
I digress. Blood Ceremony were always a band that other people were more into than me, but I’ve seen them live a couple times over the years and only come away from the experience wondering why I don’t listen to them more, so I’m happy to have the chance to dig into something new and see how it fits. There’s no audio yet — respect. — but some footage from the studio has new sounds and that’s at the bottom of the post where that kind of thing goes, and the PR wire has details on the record if not the cover art, and it should be noted that the album is coming out through Rise Above Records, whose release calendar has been pretty light since 2020. Glad to see a return to activity there as well.
Here’s a snazzy pic of the band, the album info and those tour dates:
Occult Flute Rockers BLOOD CEREMONY Announce New Album ‘The Old Ways Remain’ to be Released May 5th
EU Tour With Uncle Acid & the Deadbeats in May!
Seven years have passed since Blood Ceremony last released a full-length album, but that all changes in 2023! Pieced together during lockdown months, and brought to fruition with a host of esteemed special guests, the Canadians’ fifth album, ‘The Old Ways Remain’, is set to emerge May 5th.
Diverse, hypnotic and eminently groovy, the new songs push Blood Ceremony’s sound into new territory while also honoring the atavistic ethos that has led them to such triumphs in the past. Initial plans to repeat the successful formula that birthed ‘Lord of Misrule’ and fly to the UK to record again at Toe Rag Studios in London, fell victim to Covid restrictions, and so Sean and his comrades – Alia O’Brien (vocals/flute/organ), Lucas Gadke (bass) and Michael Carillo (drums) – switched to a simpler but equally satisfying Plan B.
“By late 2021, we realized that if we were ever going to finish a new album, we’d just have to record locally and do it ourselves,” says guitarist Sean Kennedy. “And that’s what we did. We started rehearsing the material again and were still really excited by it. Once we revisited everything, we had a new burst of energy. We found a local studio that had what we needed and we were off! Recording nearby allowed us to bring in friends like Laura Bates from (fellow folk-doom crew) Völur to play fiddle, Joseph Shabason added saxophone to ‘Eugenie’, and Mike Eckert played pedal steel on ‘Hecate’. We produced ourselves, along with our friend, Paul Keyahas. We worked with an engineer named Chris Snow who immediately got what we were trying to do. Richard Whittaker mixed the tracks at his London, UK, studio, and we think he did a great job.”
A vital testament to Blood Ceremony’s collective efficacy, ‘The Old Ways Remain’ is an album for those who love great songs, great riffs and cryptic tales from the outer limits.
‘The Old Ways Remain’ Track List:
1. The Hellfire Club
2. Ipissimus
3. Eugenie
4. Lolly Willows
5. Powers of Darkness
6. The Bonfires at Belloc Coombe
7. Widdershins
8. Hecate
9. Mossy Wood
10. Song of the Morrow
“We’re looking forward to releasing ‘The Old Ways Remain’. It’s been a long time coming, so we’re eager to finally get the songs out there and we hope people enjoy them,” Sean concludes, “We have a UK and European tour coming up in May 2023 with Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats which will be a great time. It’s been a rough few years, but the old ways remain and the ancient gods live on!”
Blood Ceremony hit the road with labelmates Uncle Acid & The Deadbeats in May:
SAT 06 Edinburgh,Scotland La Belle Angele OR Liquid Rooms
SUN 07 London, England Desertfest
MON 08 Brugge, Belgium Cactus Club
WED 10 Toulouse, France Le Metronum
THU 11 Madrid, Spain La Paqui
FRI 12 Barcelona, Spain Sala Apolo 2
SAT 13 Villeurbanne, France Le Transbordeur
MON 15 Zürich, Switzerland Plaza
TUE 16 Milan, Italy Santeria Toscana 31
THU 18 Budapest, Hungary A38 Ship
FRI 19 Krakow, Poland Soulstone Gathering
SAT 20 Prague, Czech Rep. Palac Akropolis
SUN 21 Berlin, Germany Desertfest Berlin
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I just came here to say I hate saxophones in Rock music. Thank you for listening.
My wife agrees hard with you.
Ha – have either of you heard Bohren & der Club of Gore? They are the only damn exception!!
What about Hawkwind? These are the points I keep raising, but alas, The Patient Mrs. won’t budge.
Good point, I had forgotten they rocked the sax too. As did Pink Floyd in days of yore, and even Soundgarden killed it!