Words by Natalie Blacklock
Formed in mid-2012, Melbourne band Ceres bounded into the scene with their unique brand of anthemic yet beautifully constructed dark-edge pop, that far too often hit listeners right in the feels. Inspired, yet blissfully unguarded, Ceres, through the unmistakeable vocals of frontman Tom Lanyon, delivered a fresh vulnerability in their music that listeners couldn’t get enough of. The band released debut EP ‘Luck’ in February 2013, garnering them a spot on the Melbourne leg of the 2014 Soundwave Festival. Later that year, they followed up with the release of their debut album, ‘I Don’t Want To Be Anywhere But Here’, which saw them gain a groundswell of local fans on the back of tracks including I Feel Fine, I Feel Sick and Syllables.
But Ceres on record is only half the experience – this reviewer’s first live interactions with Ceres came thick and fast on Violent Soho’s 2014 ‘No Sleep ‘Til Mansfield’ tour, where they were the national support. After attending all 5 Queensland shows on that tour, it’s safe to say that I was all-in on Team Ceres. Following on from that 2014 initiation, I made a point of seeing Ceres every chance I could, and as the band released 2016’s ‘Drag It Down On You’ and 2019’s ‘We Are A Team’, it was clear that they were a band on the rise. But, sans fanfare, grandeur, or acknowledgement, Ceres effectively disappeared in late 2019.
However, through a ‘secret’ four-year writing and recording process following their quiet and unceremonious departure, Ceres re-announced themselves earlier this year with a stream of singles, culminating in the release of ‘MAGIC MOUNTAIN (1996-2022)’; a hugely ambitious body of work chronicling singer / songwriter Tom Lanyon’s deeply personal journey of re-discovery, nostalgia, patience, heartache, and joy. From his move back to his roots atop Melbourne’s Mount Dandenong, to his agonising journey through a four-year battle to become a Dad – this new 25-track double album covers four years of toil, agony and beauty in the darkest of times, presented with the reservation and humility we’ve come to know and love from Ceres.
SIDE A
supermassive softly and unassumingly emerges from the darkness. The opening track of the record is quiet, gentle and intimate and gives us the first taste of what’s to come, including frontman Tom Lanyon’s vocals meeting their harmonic match alongside the newest addition to the Ceres family, multi-instrumentalist Stacey Cicivelli (who you might recognise from Melbourne band Self Talk). Following up is Rhododendron; a track which has an air of hopefulness and joy. Namechecking his partner, and making reference to his brother and late father, Lanyon’s clever lyricism, alongside the track’s jangly, bright instrumentation and almighty crescendo is reminiscent of The Hotelier’s 2014 track, An Introduction to the Album. “There’s a fire on top of Magic Mountain”, we hear as 1997 roars to life – a direct reference to the January 1997 Mount Dandenong bushfires – that took three lives, destroyed 41 houses, and burned 400 hectares of bushland – of which Lanyon and his brother were evacuated from as children. On 1997, we get ‘MAGIC MOUNTAIN (1996-2022)’s first taste of the Ceres we know and love – raw emotion veiled with a very purposeful blast of guitar and drums, paired with lyrics framed in nostalgia, perfectly setting the scene for what’s to come. “Could I take you with me? Because I don’t wanna do this without you” Lanyon repeats – a feeling that he and Ceres fans alike no doubt share. Tom, we’re ready… If you are? Following track, Gum, is one of those songs that deserves the stereo-blaring-with-the-windows-down kinda treatment. At face value, the track screams jangly pop-song-come-ballad of unrequited love as three very familiar words are repeated; “I miss you”. The song continues to rise; majestic, pure and almost joyous – and it’s definitely that you’ll want to scream at the top of your lungs to anyone who’ll listen. Next track, Want/Need, marked Ceres’ unexpected and triumphant return to the scene; something that definitely wasn’t on 2024’s Bingo Card! The first single from ‘MAGIC MOUNTAIN (1996-2022)’ delivered a statement; a declaration; a manifesto for the band’s next phase. A liberating, glorious burst of togetherness with a simple yet oh-so-catchy hook that it could stand alongside tracks from other homegrown talents like Gang of Youths and DMA’s. Featuring the Northern Voices Choir, this track was a mammoth first offering to OG Ceres fans (including this reviewer) and it did not disappoint.
After a burst of excitement, Loss #1 wastes no time in bringing listeners back down to Earth. The understated instrumentation on the track frames Lanyon’s vocals perfectly, acting as a brief circuit-breaker to collect our thoughts and to observe the frontman’s innermost feelings unearthed throughout the record.
SIDE B
Britney Spears changes gears and highlights Ceres at maximum output, throwing every ounce of energy they have into the track’s repeated refrain, “I was obsessed”. Britney Spears is one of those tracks that drags the absolute very best out of each and every member of Ceres, from Sean Callanan’s anthemic lead guitar lines, to Cicivelli and Lanyon’s achingly beautiful vocal harmonies, as well as the strength of Grant Young and Frank Morda’s bass/drums engine room. This track is undoubtedly shaping up to be an instant live set staple.
MAXi exudes a combination of sadness and optimism wrapped in a two-and-a-half-minute arrangement of lush strings and a dense, decadent wall of sound. With Lanyon’s vocal delivery of two simple lines as the song fades out: “I can’t be with someone who thinks like that / I hang up the phone and now I’m all alone in the parking lot”. The track ends with a raw emotional resonance that feels almost too uncomfortable to bear.
Before the silence left by MAXi takes over, 666 arrives – not with a whimper, but a boom. A driving melody and brashly honest lyricism (“Who the fuck am I? / I guess I kinda like it”), effortlessly paired with a strings section – a recurring feature throughout the record, cuts the building tension thus far, even if it’s only fleeting. A stripped back and vulnerable change of pace is delivered on i die first – a moody slow-burn ballad that again puts the vocal back-and-forth between Tom Lanyon and Stacey Cicivelli on full display. Following track, Go, is an honest and liberating offering that juxtaposes confronting subject matter with pop music sensibility, carefully not shying away the ups and downs of the past four years in Lanyon’s personal life. “Nothing’s fun but I can smile and listen / If you wanna go, I swear I get it”, Lanyon unleashes, cathartically processing his own rollercoaster of gut-wrenching emotions, laying bare the openness and honesty that ‘MAGIC MOUNTAIN (1996-2022)’ is built on. Following on is LCD. Presenting as a roaring and anthemic punk-rock singalong of sorts, the lyrics sit at the forefront of this track. Opening with “What the fuck would I know? I’m barely even here / And would you fall in love with a prick you know will never really ever care?”, the words laid bare slap you in the face with feelings of deep-seeded grief, sorrow, heartache and heartbreak stemming from a relationship’s darkest days. Spurred on by Frank Morda’s drums, this track is something special, right from the first listen.
SIDE C
The second half of the album arrives with an almost nursery rhyme-like cadence, with Common Everlasting (Birdsong) acting like the dawning of a new day. As the heartache of Lanyon’s personal journey turns a corner, Ceres don’t miss a moment to revelling in small victories “One year sober, and nobody told ya” and stark imagery “Count down the bad days / Pissing in an ashtray / Wishing it was different somehow this time”. Although the darker themes of ‘MAGIC MOUNTAIN (1996-2022)’ still linger, you can’t help but smile, knowing that there is still light at the end of this tunnel. Originally written as the album’s final track, Sunshining is a track of mixed emotions – notes of happiness, sadness, joy and agony intertwine to create something beautiful. Raw and unyielding we hear “I’m nothing but trying / Four years I’m crying / When will this stop eating at me?” ring out as somewhat of a poetic, plea from an emotionally spent soul. The fragility of life is stripped back to bare bones in Holly Hill Store Est. 1920. Named after the former Community General Store on the Mount Dandenong Tourist Road, devastating emptiness and absolute loss hit hard through the fuzz, with the haze of grief unrelenting and unmistakeable as the heartbreaking lyrics “There is no heartbeat” reverberate through the song’s 1:31 runtime. Humming announces itself as one of the most vulnerable songs in the Ceres catalogue, in which singer / songwriter Tom Lanyon continues to deal with the agonising feeling of loss and the aftermath that follows. This thematic irony given the song’s joyous and uplifting musicality speaks to the beauty of much of ‘MAGIC MOUNTAIN (1996-2022)’; presenting both the light and the dark – everything and nothing all at once.
Ceres love a big riff / big hook moment and none are bigger than those on Permanent. A booming wall of sound, the track is an intense earworm that offers something new on each listen, smacking you in the face from the first note. Lanyon says of ‘MAGIC MOUNTAIN (1996-2022)’, that he likes the idea of the album being as much a physical journey for the listener as it was for the artist, and that “it takes work to get through, for better or worse.” Permanent proves, beyond any shadow of any doubt, that it’s definitely a journey for the better. Towers TK is a change of pace, leading the charge towards acceptance in the grief cycle; “With all my scars glowing / We are in bed knowing that we are okay / You’re gonna try to get used to the pain,” we hear another cacophonic wall of layered guitars led by Sean Callanan. The track explores intrusive thoughts, worst fears and bad dreams closing with an air of self-depreciation and self-reflection with Lanyon and Cicivelli’s vocals come together as “You’re such a fucking pussy, Tom / You think that you’re the only one” linger. Rounding out Side C of ‘MAGIC MOUNTAIN (1996-2022)’ is D-O-O-M – an aching, melodic banger of a track that sets us up for the run home. Ceres have lived and died by the ‘We Are A Team’ motto in years gone by – and this new album is no exception. On such an expansive record, there are moments that frequently catch a listener off guard and Sean Callanan’s intricate guitar work on D-O-O-M does just that, creating a track that feels so vast yet so unified all-in-one.
SIDE D
The recurrent references to nursery rhymes and childhood nostalgia through the record are not misplaced. The poignant Mercury In The Next Room opens with the “Cross my heart and hope to die / Stick a needle in my eye”; a phrase embedded in the lexicon of every 1990s-mid 2000s schoolyard across the country. Restrained and delicate in its delivery, the song ruminates on Lanyon’s reflective chorus lines “It’s okay and you’re okay / It’s just bad luck / You’re growing up”, offering a sense of innocence in the face of such strong themes discussed through the album thus far. “In The Valley”, one of the most recent singles released from the record, delivers a delicate arrangement of piano, strings and vocal musing. Proclaimed by Lanyon as “maybe the saddest song” he’s ever written, the track touches on picking up the pieces of yourself, as broken as they may be, and starting again. Be warned, the strings on this track will move you – whether you’re ready for it or not.
An exercise in imagining what could have been aptly sums up Apollo. Lanyon’s scattered thoughts and disjointed musings drive home the intense weight of ‘MAGIC MOUNTAIN (1996-2022)’, with lyrics like “Push me out to the sea / I think I’m sinking / This is how it should be / I’ve given everything to this town” laying bare the emotional depths of his journey thus far. Tom Lanyon’s vocals eloquently cut through the groundswell of fuzz, keys and drums on realm, as we begin to embark on the final moments of ‘Magic Mountain (1996-2022), finding a way out of the dark. 1996 (CERES F.O.) is the screaming, symphonic ode to picking yourself up, shaking yourself off and pulling yourself out of the shit. The heartening and euphoric penultimate track is punctuated with Lanyon’s hard-hitting lyrics; “Get up you’re weak as shit / I know it sucks that it’s like this / But this is what you’ve been given, so stand up straight and start livin’” – the no-holes-barred internal monologue we didn’t know we needed. The final track of ‘MAGIC MOUNTAIN (1996-2022)’ sees the double album and this tidal wave of emotion end on a high with viv. The song presents as somewhat of a ‘Part 2’ to the band’s 2019 track Viv In The Front Seat, which captured the story of Lanyon bringing home the artwork of his partner’s late father, Viv. Fast forward to this moment of quiet satisfaction, where Lanyon himself is now embracing the role of Dad to his first daughter, who graces the track as an adorable co-vocalist.
‘MAGIC MOUNTAIN (1996-2022)’ was well worth the climb up the Secret Staircase (IYKYK). The album is an unforgiving, sprawling and deliberate heart-on-the-sleeve display – and very much a picking-up-where-they-left-off moment for the band. This 25-song epic double album is a labour of love and grief, and the warm embrace of everything in this world that’s important. ‘MAGIC MOUNTAIN (1996-2022)’ is equal parts of everything Ceres has long championed – patience, vulnerability and unashamed honesty that offers something new with every listen. Ceres are back, baby! And this is only just the beginning.
‘MAGIC MOUNTAIN (1996—2022)’ is out now via Civilians (formerly Cooking Vinyl Australia) – LISTEN HERE
Handsome Tours and Select Music present
‘MAGIC MOUNTAIN (1996—2022)’ 2025 AUSTRALIAN TOUR
w/ Special Guests Armlock
Ticket pre-sale begins Tuesday 8 October at 10am local – SIGN UP HERE
General on-sale starts on Wednesday 9 October at 10am via handsometours.com
Saturday 22 February – Altar, Hobart / Nipaluna
Friday 28 February – Lion Arts Factory, Adelaide / Tarndanya
Saturday 1 March – Rosemount Hotel, Perth / Boorloo
Friday 7 March – Oxford Art Factory, Sydney / Warrang
Saturday 8 March – The Brightside Outdoors, Brisbane / Meanjin
Friday 14 March – The Corner Hotel, Melbourne / Naarm
With thanks to Deathproof PR
