Ceremony - “The Separation” + “The Understanding” (Official Video)

California hardcore band Ceremony have announced their fifth album, The L-Shaped Man, and shared two-part video by director Ross Thomas. “The Separation” + “The Understanding” isn’t just split in its title; at about the 3:30 mark “The Separation” ends and “The Understanding” begins. As the names suggest, the album is centered around a breakup; in a press release, frontman Ross Farrar said the record deals with themes of loss quite directly:

A lot of the content has to do with loss, and specifically the loss of someone who you care deeply about. 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.

“Can you measure the loss?” is the insistent question mouthed by a vacant-eyed woman in “The Separation,” interspersed with clips of the band playing in blue, clouded seclusion. This pair of songs indicate that Ceremony’s new album will be a strong follow up to 2012’s Zoo.