After a seven-year gap, Canadian occult rockers Blood Ceremony are back with The Old Ways Remain. Inspired by 70s soundtracks, folk and women’s literature, its 10 tracks of esoteric goodness are definitely worth the wait. Vocalist, organist and flutist Alia O’Brien discusses the benefits of recording local, her teenage passion for Jethro Tull and her new-found joy for foraging.

Words: Jo Kendall Images: Matthew Manna

Don’t be fooled, Blood Ceremony are still resolutely occult rock, not polka.

It’s 6am in Edmonton, Alberta, and Blood Ceremony’s frontwoman Alia O’Brien is up and at ’em. Well, up and at Prog, via Zoom. “No, I’ve not had breakfast yet,” she laughs, when asked. But what would the first meal of the day be for Blood Ceremony, we wonder? “Probably pancakes,” she decides, “bloody pancakes with raspberry, some sort of sacrificial coulis…”

Our stomachs rumbling, it’s time to focus not on food, but on Blood Ceremony’s new album, The Old Ways Remain – the band’s fifth, with a sevenyear gap since 2016’s acclaimed Lord Of Misrule.

“[Ian] Anderson’s character, his conjuring of moods, and the way he wielded the instrument, that was all baked into my learning.”

In 2020 the record was written and ready to go, but in a similar scenario to many acts, the pandemic meant Blood Ceremony couldn’t move around to record The Old Ways Remain, travelling to their favourite studio, Toe Rag in London, as they’d planned. When conditions were safer (“We had a lot of lockdowns,” O’Brien recalls), the Toronto quartet found a workaround that delivered refreshing results.