Dream Ritual Premiere New Song “Stones”- Taken From Forthcoming “Trips Around The Sun” EP due March 22nd

Dream Ritual Premiere New Song “Stones” via Revolver

Trips Around The Sun EP Due Out 03/22

Preorders Available Now

Springfield, MO’s rock & roll revivalists, Dream Ritual, recently announced their brand new EP, Trips Around The Sun, due out March 22nd, and today the band are teaming withRevolver to premiere the record’s second single, “Stones.” From its blown-out opening riff to the sprawlingly psychedelic bridge, the track is an amalgam of huge guitars and howled vocals that’s as satisfyingly heavy as it is hooky. Revolver praised the track saying, “This is power-pop with an emphasis on power, yet never straying away from the sugary sweet melodies that make the juxtaposition so crucial.”

Dream Ritual are a loving tribute to all things rock & roll, effortlessly blending the swagger of classic rock, the crunchy catchiness of ’90s alternative, and a touch of punk urgency to create an explosive reminder of how satisfying guitar music can be. Trips Around The Sun is their most dynamic release to date, recorded with Arthur Rizk (Power Trip, Trapped Under Ice, Pissed Jeans) and finding the band unabashedly embracing decades of rock history to form a sonic identity all their own.

Trips Around The Sun track list:
1. Breathe In
2. Faster
3. Trips Around The Sun Part 1
4. Trips Around The Sun Part 2
5. Outside Your Window
6. Stones
7. Shot In The Back
8. Breathe Out

Tour Dates:

02/24 Tulsa, OK @ The Vanguard
03/23 Springfield, MO @ The Outland
04/11 St. Louis, MO @ The Sinkhole
04/12 Cedar Falls, IA @ The Octopus
04/13 Chicago, IL @ DC Torium
04/15 Cincinnati, OH @ The Hub
04/19 Kansas City, MO @ The Rino

Biography:
In 2019 a band like Dream Ritual feels like an outlier. Built on loud guitars, a powerhouse rhythm section, and howled vocals, the Springfield, Missouri-based band’s new EP, Trips Around The Sun, is a loving tribute to rock & roll. But most of all, it’s a reminder of just how satisfying it can be. 

Dream Ritual began in 2014 after guitarist/vocalist Jason Nunn, guitarist Ethan Hollingshad, bassist Dakota Caldwell, and drummer Blake Mixon met in the Springfield punk/hardcore scene but bonded over a shared love of classic rock and ‘90s alternative. Fueled by the combined might of four particularly deep record collections, Dream Ritual’s 2015 self-titled debut EP offered a fresh and faithful take on the riffier side of the Seattle sound, and was followed by the psych-tinged Summer Promo EP in 2017. 

As preparation for Trips Around The Sun began, Dream Ritual found themselves frustrated with the constraints of scenes, trends, hyper-specific genre tags, and the music world’s never-ending search for “cool.” Nunn explains: “There’s so many things that you can overthink in a band, so we just decided to start leaning into what we love. We all have wide music tastes but classic rock is what connects us.” They began writing songs that unabashedly employed anything that captured their imaginations from decades worth of guitar music: the psychedelia of the ‘60s, the gritty grandeur of the ‘70s, a touch of ‘80s bombast, and of course, the tunefully raw power of the ‘90s. “We basically stopped caring about anything but making the music we wanted to hear — we’re going to like what we like, regardless of how many Jimi Hendrix t-shirts you can buy at Kohls,” Nunn laughs. 

The resulting songs are Dream Ritual’s most accomplished to date, and in wholeheartedly embracing their influences, the band found a sonic identity that is distinctly their own. Trips Around The Sun is a mini-epic, its six songs bookended by an foreboding intro and outro, and tied together thematically by Nunn’s often dark depictions of the human condition and the passage of time. With the help of producer/engineer Arthur Rizk (Power Trip, Trapped Under Ice, Pissed Jeans), the recording maintains the perfect balance of punch and density — as found in opener “Faster,” which explodes from the speakers as Caldwell and Mixon’s muscular bass and drums collide with Nunn’s full-throated roar. 

On Trips Around The Sun, Nunn took a different lyrical approach, writing less autobiographically and allowing himself to be more inspired by other stories, art, and experiences around him. “Trips Around The Sun Part 2” and “Stones” exemplify this, referencing everything from the animated mini-series Over The Garden Wall, to David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive, to Nunn’s own life — all blended into a kaleidoscopic look at the strangeness of existence. Both songs barrel forward with not only vintage Dream Ritual drive, but also newfound swagger, hooks, and cohesion. “We tried to focus in on writing songs rather than piecing together riffs,” Nunn says. “If it felt right, we leaned into it.”

On “Trips Around The Sun Part 1” and “Outside Your Window,” the band explores a new range of melodicism and psychedelic flourishes without sacrificing their rougher edges. The former is a desert rock dirge that recounts the heartbreaking true story of lost hikers who took their own lives when faced with starvation, while the latter sounds like what might happen if Neil Young, Michael Stipe, and Kurt Cobain teamed up to write an ominous country song. “Shot In The Back” pulls all the threads together into one five minute behemoth, seamlessly shifting between Byrds-esque picking and a 120 Minutes-worthy wall of fuzz before culminating in Nunn and Hollingshad’s battle of guitar pyrotechnics. Through it all, Nunn sings about the sheer overwhelming nature of being alive. “Life is a lot of searching,” he explains. “But you don’t have a lot of choices other than to put your head down and keep going.” The sentiment is blunt, but deeply human–not unlike Dream Ritual’s music. Life is complicated enough, rock & roll doesn’t have to be.

www.dreamritualband.com