killswitch engaged

💿 AXAXC – Grateful

DISTORT. DISTRUST. DESTROY.

This album is warfare. A cinematic deathcore/nu-metal epic that rips from raw confession to cyberpunk prophecy, built on sludge-heavy chugs, melodic chaos, and truths you weren’t supposed to hear.

From the unflinching defiance of “Praise” and “MaZe”, through the cheeky venom of “Beloved Beast”, the core of this extended play burns brightest in the Losing Trilogy — Losing My Soul, Losing My Home, Losing My Code — a three-act battle for self, sanctuary, and identity in a world built to break you.

It doesn’t end there. “Mirror” and “The Mirror Lies” twist the blade deeper, while Requiem Aeternal editions reforge the heaviest moments into even darker shapes. It all collapses into the final transmission — “Wake Up, Neo.”. 

This your last chance to see the system for what it is. Wake Up. You have No Excuses.

This album is for the ones who’ve been misunderstood, marginalised, and underestimated.
It’s for the people who rage in private, who keep fighting even when no one’s watching.
If you’ve ever felt like the walls were closing in, this is your Album.

For fans of: #SleepToken, #BringMeTheHorizon, #LornaShore, #LinkinPark, #SlaughterToPrevail, #Architects.

Tracklist:

- Praise
- MaZe
- Tongues of Sin (Remastered)
- Beloved Beast
- Losing My Soul
- Losing My Home
- Losing My Code
- Mirror
- The Mirror Lies
- MaZe [Requiem Aeternal]
- Nail in the Coffin (Remastered x3)
- Losing My Soul [Requiem Aeternal]
- Losing My Home [Requiem Aeternal]
- Beloved Beast [Requiem Aeternal]
- Wake Up, Neo.

#Deathcore #NuMetal #Metalcore #AXAXC #LosingMySoul #CyberpunkMetal #Sludgecore #PostRockMetal #RequiemAeternal #HeavyMusic #Screamo #GothicMetal #IndustrialMetal #CinematicMetal #MetalBand #MetalVocals #AXAXCFamily

MaZe

This was another song I wrote during those same emotionally turbulent high school years in the mid-1980s. If "Breakin' My Heart" was about the immediate shock of betrayal, "Shattered Illusions" dug deeper into the aftermath - that hollow feeling when you realize everything you believed about someone was built on lies.

The opening line "Midnight shadows, a phone that won't ring" perfectly captured those sleepless nights, waiting for someone who was never going to call. I remember writing that verse thinking about how naive I'd been, how I'd "built castles on empty words." The metaphor felt so real to me then - all those promises and dreams just crumbling down.

What I'm proud of in this song is the pre-chorus structure. Adding that extra emotional build before hitting the chorus made the impact stronger. "Shattering my world" felt like the perfect phrase to describe how completely someone could destroy your sense of reality when you're seventeen and think you know everything about love.

The bridge represents growth - moving from victim to survivor. "I'm done with your lies, done with the pain" shows that progression from hurt to empowerment that I was learning to navigate as a teenager. The outro ties it all together with "Your love was fiction, but I'll rise from this fall" - probably the most mature line I wrote at that age.

Like my other lyrics from that time, this sat dormant for decades until AI technology gave me the opportunity to finally hear these words with music. There's something magical about bringing teenage angst full circle with today's creative tools. The song now has that dramatic, emotional sound that matches the intensity I felt when I first wrote these words.

You Don't Bleed For Me

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