my year with the wizard was a long one / you act like a friend, but you’re the wrong one
i call on the phone, i need an answer / why don’t you want the truth?

my year with the devil was a sad one / you look for yourself inside a bad one
and everyone knows that this is nowhere / how do you sleep at night?

my year with the lovers wasn’t worth it / i asked for too much, i think i cursed it
i asked for the kill, but not the question / what do you want from me?

My Year With The Wizard

fool

In Evil Hour

leo is a friend of mine / high all the time / in the morning cutting pine / can't ever get my friend on the line

leo threw their phone away / what can i say? / does it ever go away? / i never know if leo's ok

michael is a friend of mine / we never talk, who has the time? / in the morning chugging wine / “are you alright?” “yeah, i'm just fine”

now i'm just a hand in glove / go to the bank to pay it off / do we ever get above?

(tethering to the light)

i sat w tom at the themed bar / & i thought to ask but i didn’t want to seem too forward, so i shut up / & now you cry when the boss comes on the radio / but that’s ok, tommy waves

louis called me the other day / i wasn’t ignoring him but i knew what was coming, now i can’t turn away / & now he’s living sick & alone in the city / like a spot in history

“here, between answer & nothing, i stand” / i read your book of poems & try to find my own power / “is it true the earth is all there is, and the earth does not last?” / yeah its true

tether

pray / stranger say my name / hold me up today / i can't see past this thing

stay / a big cloud on the brain / circle round the ring / circle round the ring

great / slipped off in the rain / how am i to blame? / help me find this thing

mistake? / you ran there in a day / circle round the ring / circle round the ring

don't play / big cloud on the brain / every time, i cave / but let's let this one stay

ring

soul unfold / don't budge, get fucked, spit blood / while the vision splits the seams / hold me

let me down / no word, no hurt, no sound / put it back into the ground / get it off my knee

are you the temple? / no

quit on me / my friends, my job, my dream / i know nothing comes for free / hold me

bird, don't cry / my kid's gonna be alright / put it back into the light

are you the temple? no

temple

throwing bricks in an empty room / i saw a quiet crowd, gloom / i saw the egg crack, it was you / i saw two lovers running through

and what can i do / when you're telling me to wake up, honey?

i saw the egg

made my friend take the weight off my back / it was only a laugh

you're my favorite, i'll bring you some smokes / it was only a joke

in the river i bit back the urge / to swim to the bottom and never emerge

on the couch shooting threes with the team / it was only a dream

post up / roll back / switch up / just breathe / swish

s w i s h

one friend turned around, holding hands with another one / “you got your shit right, you got it all figured out” / but i'm just floating down in the dark with the other ones

i'm not a nite lite

my friend the sun, she got stuck in the mud again / she's in the bedroom, hundreds of Colt 45's / but i'm a dark mark, rape of the lock kind of everyman

i'm not a nite lite

my mom's best friend put me up on a pedestal / “your worth is endless,” brisk is the animal mind / but i'm floating down in the dark, i'm forgettable

nite lite

meet me on the prison floor / i need something to keep warm / put my hand on top of yours / carry in the apple core

core

you see me standing in the back of the room / i see a quiet crowd, and pass on through / i saw the egg crack, it was you

i've been the moon over the edge of the town / and all i ever did was let you down / i saw the egg crack, it was you

how do you keep towering?

And i've been traveling forever / i'm not a rock, i'm not together / i saw the egg crack, it was you

i don't need the crown i used to know / i'm always traveling towards the shape of you alone / i saw the egg crack, it was you

how do you keep towering?

tower

Jesse Doherty, songwriter for Catskills-based band Battle Ave (formed in 2009 by Doherty and drummer Samantha Niss), seems to be waiting for popular trends to catch up with him. His compositions of wobbly synthesizers, garbled vocals, and clear-eyed melody recall outré acts like Frog Eyes as much as they do music that will catch on in five years. Their 2011 debut War Paint was a cathartic rollercoaster, with Doherty testing the limits of his self-taught voice under layers of distortion. The record that followed, 2015’s Year of Nod, found the band using a more subdued palette to paint, as James Rettig wrote, “a cloudy landscape of emotional peaks and valleys.” Battle Ave often feels like a hub, a place where things that feel familiar are captured and distorted until you no longer know what to make of them.

BATTLE AVE.

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