CERES // Stray Away From Their Melancholic Past To Embrace Love

Ceres are no strangers when it comes to writing songs about break-ups such as their single Stretch Ur Skin alongside riffs and chords that reflect soul sombering moods and dejected times.

MORE: FRANK CARTER & THE RATTLESNAKES: The Death Of The Genre // BRING ME THE HORIZON: First Love Australian Tour REVIEWS: BAD RELIGION: Age Of Unreason //  CLOWNS: Nature/Nurture // THE DAMNED THINGS: High Crimes // FRANK CARTER & THE RATTLESNAKES: End Of Suffering // CERES: We Are A Team

The quartet’s subdued debut album Drag It Down On You left them with no choice but to write a follow up album that gave them a way forward and to embrace a glass half full outlook. The result is We are a Team, an album that thematically evokes optimism, happiness and love while still remaining true to the band’s emo rock roots.

“The album is about falling in love I guess” Ceres singer Tom Lanyon tells Hysteria, “My now partner and I went through up’s and downs and the stories for song ideas weren’t coming to me for about a year, not because of writers block but because I just didn’t want to write songs, and then for no reason songs just started popping out of my head and I got inspired to write again. I regrouped the band and we started to write We Are A Team in March last year and recorded the album in September.”

The LP’s single Me & You has been received well by their fans, radio and media and sums up their reinvention in their songwriting and up beat performance style, “It’s been really good, Triple J picked the song up and when we play it live it sounds great, people overall are really liking it. We’ve been really lucky this time around that Triple J have picked up one of our singles and the huge reaction it’s had, we’re really stocked about it!”

It brought out some very creative sessions and it also brought about some very frustrating sessions, it was strange but it was an amazing experience and it gave us more time to really think about the album.
[ Tom Lanyon ]

When the band decided to change gears in their approach to their songwriting, they also changed their method of recording; We are a Team was recorded in a rural property without internet or phones and was a useful exercise that brought out some encouraging results, “I really liked the whole process, some of our band mates did struggle with it though, we worked with producer Tom Bromley from Los Campesinos! who produced our last record and he was from the UK so keeping in touch with loved ones from abroad was difficult for him and I think everyone dealt with it in different ways. It brought out some very creative sessions and it also brought about some very frustrating sessions, it was strange but it was an amazing experience and it gave us more time to really think about the album. In the end I think you can hear the house on the record, on the song Stay Awake you can hear rafters of the house if you turn it up loud enough, there were lots of creaky sounds in the property so I think the house is all over the record and I think it made it all the better.”

The release of We Are A Team now gives them the opportunity to tour the album nationally and Ceres will be doing just that starting their six-date tour in their hometown of Melbourne in May and finishing up in June in Perth. To add the band’s sense of renewed optimism they’ve also added a fifth member to the group in multi-instrumentalist Stacey Cicivelli who is also married to drummer Frank Morda’s and will be joining them on the road. “She’s been around with us for a while, she’s sang on a few of our songs and she’s played shows with us before and we just thought she could help us out because she’s so talented, she’s got an amazing voice and it was very organic to bring her in.” Tickets are on sale now for the tour so make sure you catch them in your city.

Catch Ceres at the following dates:

MELBOURNE // Friday 17 May // Corner Hotel
HOBART // Saturday 18 May // Hobart Brewing Co
SYDNEY // Friday 24 May // Oxford Art Factory
BRISBANE // Saturday 25 May // The Zoo
ADELAIDE // Friday 31 May // Crown & Anchor
PERTH // Saturday 1 June // The Sewing Room

Tickets available here.