Photo by Greg Noire

The past is informing the present, and perhaps even the future, too, when it comes to CEREMONY lately. So far this year, the Bay Area hardcore punk (or is it post-punk?) band have revisited the anniversary of playing their transcendent landmark album Rohnert Park live for one two nights only at the Hollywood Palladium with a release committing the occasion to vinyl and digital. They also just wrapped up playing both weekends of Coachella, somehow only for the very first time ever in their 20-plus career.

All timelines from their shape-shifting into the wayside are converging on “Other Hells”, their first new music in 5 years. Fans holding strong to their “I miss the old CEREMONY” t-shirts might need to start rethinking what that means in 2026. The listen is an unhinged juxtaposition crushing together a proto punk road rash with the goth-adjacent new wave beams throughout the tail-end of their discography, blurring that fine line that’s come to define the band where violence (violence!) and beauty coexist within the same fiery world. It’s also been a minute since we’ve heard frontman Ross Farrar barking lyrics like this, and he might sound even more like a lunatic these days with time having charred his throat. This is a new kind of paradise unleashed for CEREMONY heads of all walks nonetheless.

CEREMONY’s “Other Hells” single is available now on Relapse Records.