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The L​-​Shaped Man

by CEREMONY

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1.
Hibernation 01:33
You took pictures of Your life 
But stopped after awhile 
Closed Your eyes to faith 
Shame and denial 
You think now nothing went right 
But You’re wrong 
Are You having those dreams again?
 Bodies of water You have to get through this 
Get through it all
2.
Exit Fears 03:19
You told Your friends You were fine 
You thought You were fine too 
You told Your family twice 
How You had climbed out 

But nothing in this world is fine 
Nothing ever feels right 
You have to tell Yourself You tried The pain will leave in the night 
Memories return in the light No one would find out

 It started as a way to get by 
You thought You’d survive through 
You were lonely & wanted to die 
That’s just a weight You confide But nothing in this world survives 
Nothing ever feels right 
You have to tell Yourself You tried
3.
Bleeder 04:36
Are You calling old friends again?
 Have You forgotten how to live?
 You stood screaming in Your room 
There was no one there 
No one heard 

You desire to be seen 
You’re backing down the hallway again
 You slept through entire days 
‘Til human voices wake You & You drown’ 

You’ve become careless about time 
Your soul seems to be in a knot 
Have You been watching the sun rise?
 Don’t fall into the fire
4.
You remember sitting inside the café 
Selfishly aware of things You couldn’t change 
Edith was buried down the same street 
‘Give your heart & soul to me’ You remember the first time You called 
Life arranged by feelings You felt 
Standing in the snow 
Always gone 
The door in the floor 
Always closed You sat down on the patio watched the cars go by 
Heard the splash from Icarus 
Falling from the sky 
There was something You couldn’t move You couldn’t be Love turned into reasoning 
Became so harrowing People You loved Places You saw
 Portions are gone
5.
You don’t want to leave from here 
Tied to the pain of passing the years 
Passing the touch You know it by heart Like not getting enough Wandering around Looking up 
You come to a place 
You just want to stop 
You want to give up 
If You don’t care where You are 
You’re not lost
6.
Pieces of time 
Thrown from the bow 
Five years away 
You never figured it out 
When she stepped outside You feel down 
When she closed the door You started throwing Yourself

 Can You measure the loss?
7.
The Pattern 02:29
He walked into the room 
Paid the working man 
The change was physical
 It’s happening again It will always be there 
Those strange happenings He taught You how to see again He’ll always be Your friend 

Those early years Felt so unclean 
You tried to walk away 
But it’s happening again
8.
Underneath You can’t escape the sound within this room boom boom
 You pump the blood in & out 

The root of the world is in the red heart Poisoning the body distracts the mind from what it needs You couldn’t sleep 
You couldn’t eat 
Couldn’t think Chewing your fingers to the quick 
With the intimacy of her cigarette Lips lungs teeth
9.
The Party 03:25
You can’t remember The face of a person You used to know Did You even know them? Did You ever really know? Sitting at the party 
On the stairs 
They came back to You 
They always come back to You Some of those people You used to love 
Somehow it hurts to know 
They’re gone from You 
You should have known all along After You’re feeling low 
Small pains start to come 
Try to forget the smell You have to go 
Someone’s behind You
10.
The Bridge 03:27
Inside the bridge You suddenly felt calm 
Simple passing through the world & remembered The Man with the Wooden Arm 
How hard it must have been? You saw Yourself walking with no one else 
& it scared You 
The thought
 But Your heart was just asleep that night 
No dreams at all It’s nothing like You ever thought Why do You break sometimes when You’re alone? Is it the feeling of heavy loss? You don’t think about her anymore
 But You still lie Going out 
Impossible to breathe 
It didn’t hurt 
Finding other things 
It didn’t feel like anything
11.
The color in the trees started changing 
It got colder inside that house 
You drove through a golden field 
Fell asleep at the wheel of time 

& it felt like You’d never come down 
From that place inside Your chest 
That feeling may never stop 

While Your dreams warned You of the bad 
All Your problems would never fix 
Nothing was ever right with You 

When You try to fall asleep tonight 
Remember who’s here with You 
Everyone You ever knew 
Everyone You ever touched

about

Breakup albums mark a turning point for a band: the moment when their sound completely changes and reaches a new level of emotional clarity. All that heartbreak and malaise condensed into any single record often makes for a defining piece of work, no matter the genre. The best records explore the nooks and crannies of sadness, learning it inside and out — celebrating it.

Ceremony’s fifth studio album, The L-Shaped Man, uses singer Ross Farrar’s recent breakup as a platform to explore loneliness and emotional weariness, but it is by no means a purely sad album. Rather than look inward, Farrar uses his experience to write about what it means to go through something heavy and come out the other side a different person.

In order to tell Farrar's story, Ceremony have almost completely stripped back the propulsive hardcore of their previous records, turning every angry outburst into simmering despair. “We’ve always tried to be minimalists in writing, even if it’s loud or fast or abrasive,” says lead guitarist Anthony Anzaldo. “It’s really intense when I hear it. Not in a way where you turn everything up to ten. Things are so bare, you’re holding this one note for so long and you don’t now where it’s going—to me, that’s intensity.” That intensity is apparent on “Exit Fears,” the first full song on the record. It meticulously pairs Justin Davis’ loping bassline, which pulls the track along, with Anzaldo's icy, minimal guitar work. It brings to mind some alternate version of Joy Division that hasn’t quite lost all hope. It gets close to exploding, but instead plays the shadows, never quite rising above a nervous simmer.

“A lot of the content has to do with loss, and specifically the loss of someone who you care deepl about,” Farrar says. “There is no way for you to go through something like this artistically and not have really strong emotions of loss and pain. There’s not really any way to hide that.” Farrar, for his part, is singing with a new kind of intensity, his baritone swooping and retreating from stressed angst to unsettling near-mutter as he sings, “You told your friends you were fine/ you thought you were fine too…” and later, “nothing is ever fine/ nothing ever feels right/ you have to tell yourself you tried.” It’s the first of many lyrically direct moments, and it should be hard to listen to, but Ceremony have so effortlessly nailed the sound of sadness that it feels great to live inside for awhile.

The sound is abetted by producer John Reis, who honed his sound in seminal bands like Rocket from the Crypt, Drive Like Jehu, and Hot Snakes. Much of the gravelly aggression he experimented with in those bands is present on The L-Shaped Man.

There's a story behind the title too. “I was speaking to our driver Stephen while on tour,” Farrar says. “We were talking about men in general and what shape they are…their body type. I said, ‘I guess men are in the shape of an L. The torso is straight. Vertical. And then you have the little feet at the end.’ There’s this painter named Leslie Lerner who was living in San Francisco in the ‘70s and ‘80s and made these beautiful paintings. He died on my 21st birthday. A lot of the record is about the similarities in our ideas. In what we’re trying to make. Things that have to do with love and losing love.”

credits

released May 19, 2015

Ceremony is Anthony Anzaldo, Jake Casarotti, Justin Sean 'Tore Davis, Ross Farrar, Andy Nelson.

Produced by John Reis.
Engineered by Ben Moore.
Assisted by Dean Reis.
Recorded at Big Fish Studios.
Additional tracking and mixed at City of Refuge, San Diego.
Mastered by Dave Gardner at Magneto Mastering.
Art direction and layout by Mike Zimmerman & Ceremony.
Line drawing by Ross Farrar.

All songs by Ceremony.

www.ceremonyhc.com

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