<p><span><span>- Patience is a virtue with We Set Sail. You’ll be rewarded for said patience in spades. Five years beyond <em>Feel Nothing </em>and the chasm inside me which sad-bastard-music occupies has mercifully been filled. Filled with a lush abundance of layered guitars, relatable lyrical content, and insightful movie samples. Interestingly, it's the last of those three that gives us a hint of what to expect from a narrative perspective; the brief snippets reinforce what the band are putting across. We Set Sail sum up <em>Ritual & Ceremony </em>accurately when they say they want you to “…slow the fuck down and come on this journey with us”. Said journey is a bee’s dick under an hour, featuring the group’s most extensive track listing to date and that’s a combination that makes its cohesion and impeccable flow all the more engrossing.</span></span></p>
<p><span><span>I’ll gawk and fawn over how this album is structured in a moment but <em>The Valium Phase </em>may well be an entry in the list of <em>Top Side One, Track Ones</em>. As an opener, it encapsulates the nomenclature of We Set Sail. Simple strums pair with earnest vocals for an airy introduction. Contrast that with strained, distant backing vocals bringing wall-of-sound emo rock thundering to the forefront, crashing down on you; it is simply pure bliss. Never ones to take themselves too seriously, a candid clip of a band member’s impatience brings us to the measured and gently delivered <em>Hurry Up, I Wanna Fuckin’ Leave</em>. Slow, languid melodies mingle as sweet harmonies flesh out towards the song’s middle. Progress is made towards the release around three minutes in and in emphatic fashion. <em>Organ Freeman</em>, with jangly chords and rattling tambourine is an interlude that is so close to becoming its own song; plus the Translink soundbite is oh so close to my little heart. Both <em>Ordinary </em>and <em>Tiled Floor Symmetry </em>are outright amplifier worship, dousing us under a blanket of gorgeous tones and gratifying warmth. Our second interlude is <em>The Goggles Do Nothing</em>, a major departure from everything else. Subtle and brittle is the sound palette here as delayed guitars whirl over the solo voice and chords. <em>Ritual & Ceremony </em>finishes with great gusto for an album that’s already eleven tracks deep. It doesn't lag at all through seven minute monolith <em>Meshuggah Ray (Space Jam 2)</em>; an astounding feat.</span></span></p>
<p><span><span>The Brisbane group are completely justified when they tell you this record needs to be consumed in full. How this album is laid out and structured makes everything from track one to fourteen feel vital to <em>Ritual & Ceremony</em>. It flows from one track to the next without a moment wasted. Each cut complements what comes before and after. Short interludes offset otherwise monstrous riffs and endings transitions into new beginnings. There was one single, which by itself was a good stand alone, but having heard it in context it takes on a whole new majesty. The time of the album may be decades past, but this is an album may make you wonder how that can be: it needs to be enjoyed from front to back. Every element here is integral, because <em>Ritual & Ceremony </em>is a work of art.</span></span></p>
<p><span><span>- Matt Lynch.</span></span></p>
<iframe style="border: 0; width: 100%; height: 120px;" src="https://bandcamp.com/EmbeddedPlayer/album=1941059089/size=large/bgcol=f…; seamless><a href="https://wesetsail.bandcamp.com/album/ritual-and-ceremony">Ritual and Ceremony by we set sail</a></iframe>