Anathema (2020)

[Lyrics]

How can my eyes deceive
This thing before me
Blurred, burned, decaying
I wrote this prophecy
How can I persist here
Without air to breathe
Stark, cold, unfeeling
My worst enemy

Stalk, creep, impending pounce
Murder, mayhem, and blood
red shimmering spread
You just want my head
No! Back! Get away from me!
There is nothing for you here
Never before has this
gnawing at my throat bled so clear

Kneel now before my gods:
Fear, Pain, Misery
Sheltered within my walls
Must let no one see
Futile, my every lurch
Taunting, fraudulent light
Chains tightening
Reciprocal with all my might

I know what you are
Glinting fangs and eyes
I know what you are
Lurking through these lies
I know what you are
Hunter within seclusion
I know what you are
Memory-turned-delusion

Get away from me
(This is just an illusion)

Plague Prowling

[Instrumental version]

How can my eyes deceive
This thing before me
Blurred, burned, decaying
I wrote this prophecy
How can I persist here
Without air to breathe
Stark, cold, unfeeling
My worst enemy

Stalk, creep, impending pounce
Murder, mayhem, and blood
Red shimmering spread
You just want my head
No! Back! Get away from me!
There is nothing for you here
Never before has this
gnawing at my throat bled so clear

Kneel now before my gods:
Fear, Pain, Misery
Sheltered within my walls
Must let no one see
Futile, my every lurch
Taunting, fraudulent light
Chains tightening
Reciprocal with all my might

I know what you are
Glinting fangs and eyes
I know what you are
Lurking through these lies
I know what you are
Hunter within seclusion
I know what you are
Memory-turned-delusion

Get away from me
(This is just an illusion)

Plague Prowling (instrumental)

Anathema

Rhadamanthus III (instrumental)

Sisyphus Smiles (instrumental)

[Lyrics]

Instruments of power-claws
Justice blinded by ambition
Under-compensated duty
spawning bitter subjugation
For lack of targets clear
and rise of battle culture
The enemy so near -
A populace of vultures

Imagined threats beget
this overreach of power
Authority inveterate
Bend, submit, cower

Bottoms up, glasses
Our power is established
Let them moan and protest
Their lives reduced to ashes
Shake the hands that feed you
Wastch your pockets glisten
Your time with us is wisely spent
Our cash is your religion

Arm yourselves, masses
That we might have some practice
Take our toys straight to your house
Flash our guns and badges
Pray to your gods
Hold fast your Constitution
Your faith in us was poorly placed
Your rights are an illusion

Anathematics

[Instrumental version]

Instruments of power-claws
Justice blinded by ambition
Under-compensated duty
spawning bitter subjugation
For lack of targets clear
and rise of battle culture
The enemy so near -
A populace of vultures

Imagined threats beget
this overreach of power
Authority inveterate
Bend, submit, cower

Bottoms up, glasses
Our power is established
Let them moan and protest
Their lives reduced to ashes
Shake the hands that feed you
Wastch your pockets glisten
Your time with us is wisely spent
Our cash is your religion

Arm yourselves, masses
That we might have some practice
Take our toys straight to your house
Flash our guns and badges
Pray to your gods
Hold fast your Constitution
Your faith in us was poorly placed
Your rights are an illusion

Anathematics (instrumental)

[Lyrics]

The monotony, the static
Motionless, side-sway dance
The clatter of broken dreams
Stagnant, repugnant machine

Reify, humanity denied
Defined by numbers, invisible screens
Despair of the third kind
Fulfilling another dream, unseen

Fortune, monstrous and empty
To your pleasure I bare my back
Hoard of all I ever hoped to be
Deferred to another me

Vilify, humanity declined
Defined by figures, profits, and means
Detested as mere swine
Fulfilling another scheme, unclean

Sanctify, inanity divined
Defined by function, descriptors sheen
Despair, to know free mind
Fulfilling another me, not me

This is the way the world ends
For Thine is the kingdom
Supplicant, my dying breath
My kingdom for this day to end

Kingdom

[Instrumental version]

The monotony, the static
Motionless, side-sway dance
The clatter of broken dreams
Stagnant, repugnant machine

Reify, humanity denied
Defined by numbers, invisible screens
Despair of the third kind
Fulfilling another dream, unseen

Fortune, monstrous and empty
To your pleasure I bare my back
Hoard of all I ever hoped to be
Deferred to another me

Vilify, humanity declined
Defined by figures, profits, and means
Detested as mere swine
Fulfilling another scheme, unclean

Sanctify, inanity divined
Defined by function, descriptors sheen
Despair, to know free mind
Fulfilling another me, not me

This is the way the world ends
For Thine is the kingdom
Supplicant, my dying breath
My kingdom for this day to end

Kingdom (instrumental)

[Cover of Arcana's "A Cage", from their 2012 EP "Emerald." Arcana is one of the formative artists in my love for making music, and it was high-time I sang their praises with what I've learned.

Arcana broke up in 2014, but if you've ever wondered what melanchony sounds like at its most beautiful, their discography is an uninterrupted master class.

Please check out the original here: https://arcana.bandcamp.com/track/a-cage

Lyrics]

In the darkest point of life
When all hopes are gone
What used to be so colorful
Is now grey

At night the sky used to be
So full of stars
What used to be so colorful
Is now grey

It's so hard to get out of this cage
When the outside is so much worse
It's so hard to get rid of these chains
As there's nothing left to fight for

It's so hard to get out of this cage
When the outside is so much worse
It's so hard to get rid of these chains
As there's nothing left to fight for

A Cage (Arcana cover)

[Please check out the original here: arcana.bandcamp.com/track/a-cage

Instrumental version]

In the darkest point of life
When all hopes are gone
What used to be so colorful
Is now grey

At night the sky used to be
So full of stars
What used to be so colorful
Is now grey

It's so hard to get out of this cage
When the outside is so much worse
It's so hard to get rid of these chains
As there's nothing left to fight for

It's so hard to get out of this cage
When the outside is so much worse
It's so hard to get rid of these chains
As there's nothing left to fight for

A Cage (Arcana cover)(instrumental)

[Lyrics]

What breeds their fungus but the insects
that carry the spores, weaving back and forth
dodging leaves, their necks slumped forward,
heads hanging, blinded by the dirt,
blind to the gargantuan trees stabbing the sky,
drinking the radiant blood of the universes held aloft?

What comfort-song resonates in hollow
spires: irregular, contorted,
teetering atop foundations of mud and soot;
menacing anguish, intense in their scorn,
in their winds of ice that freeze the flow
of our rivers of blood of the universes held aloft?

What keeps these towers standing
but willing slaves, tugging in myriad pulls,
tilting the bastions in each favor?
Why do they not stamp their bricks to dust,
uproot the poison ground and erect
the shining pyramids of enlightenment,
of universes held aloft?

What is to be gained from confinement;
from the blood of the universes held aloft?

What feeds the cling to antiquity?
What bliss lives in ignorance;
the perpetuation of uncertainty,
bias, doubt, obedience;
the endorsed degeneration
of nuance, objectivity,
dissolving of human thought
into stagnation and rot?

What is to be gained from confinement;
to be gained while deprived of thought?
What is the lesson learned from restraint
from the blood of the universes held aloft?

Deepspace

[Instrumental version]

What breeds their fungus but the insects
that carry the spores, weaving back and forth
dodging leaves, their necks slumped forward,
heads hanging, blinded by the dirt,
blind to the gargantuan trees stabbing the sky,
drinking the radiant blood of the universes held aloft?

What comfort-song resonates in hollow
spires: irregular, contorted,
teetering atop foundations of mud and soot;
menacing anguish, intense in their scorn,
in their winds of ice that freeze the flow
of our rivers of blood of the universes held aloft?

What keeps these towers standing
but willing slaves, tugging in myriad pulls,
tilting the bastions in each favor?
Why do they not stamp their bricks to dust,
uproot the poison ground and erect
the shining pyramids of enlightenment,
of universes held aloft?

What is to be gained from confinement;
from the blood of the universes held aloft?

What feeds the cling to antiquity?
What bliss lives in ignorance;
the perpetuation of uncertainty,
bias, doubt, obedience;
the endorsed degeneration
of nuance, objectivity,
dissolving of human thought
into stagnation and rot?

What is to be gained from confinement;
to be gained while deprived of thought?
What is the lesson learned from restraint
from the blood of the universes held aloft?

Deepspace (instrumental)

[Lyrics]

Its silence, the utter quiet of it
Surround the deaf and blind
The dull hiss of passing eons
Convulsions of a dying mind

Its origin, the why of it
Astounding ‘til stupefied
The chants of the science séance
The inadvertent suicide

Abyss agape, event-horizon shine
The nothing we fear at the edge of time

Its shape, the utter scope of it
Imposing, amorphous writhe
The quiver strings excite
Chains of gravity bind

Abyss agape, event-horizon shine
The nothing we fear at the edge of time
Blackened shape, fate of man divined
Oblivion beckons, catharsis designed

Tear, the ripping of atoms
Asunder the fabric twines
Sprawling intestines of matter
Infinitesimal web-lines

Whirling flameless inferno
Vacuity unbound, abhorred
Insatiable hunger to erase
Information obliterate

Knowledge communes the essence
Of our end before its time
Prophesied by this science séance
Our immutable doom, defined

(The first design, four forces
Spun these matter and energies
The boundaries of understanding
And all between its sides)

Capitulate, entropy cycles out
The monuments of order, bright
This evening, this flattening out
Of dark against the light

The end of time amassed
Complete, its infinity
Abyss agape, event-horizon shine
Abandon your fear, embrace the nothing

Seance

[Instrumental version]

Its silence, the utter quiet of it
Surround the deaf and blind
The dull hiss of passing eons
Convulsions of a dying mind

Its origin, the why of it
Astounding ‘til stupefied
The chants of the science séance
The inadvertent suicide

Abyss agape, event-horizon shine
The nothing we fear at the edge of time

Its shape, the utter scope of it
Imposing, amorphous writhe
The quiver strings excite
Chains of gravity bind

Abyss agape, event-horizon shine
The nothing we fear at the edge of time
Blackened shape, fate of man divined
Oblivion beckons, catharsis designed

Tear, the ripping of atoms
Asunder the fabric twines
Sprawling intestines of matter
Infinitesimal web-lines

Whirling flameless inferno
Vacuity unbound, abhorred
Insatiable hunger to erase
Information obliterate

Knowledge communes the essence
Of our end before its time
Prophesied by this science séance
Our immutable doom, defined

(The first design, four forces
Spun these matter and energies
The boundaries of understanding
And all between its sides)

Capitulate, entropy cycles out
The monuments of order, bright
This evening, this flattening out
Of dark against the light

The end of time amassed
Complete, its infinity
Abyss agape, event-horizon shine
Abandon your fear, embrace the nothing

Seance (instrumental)

[My take on a classic, "Amazing Grace." The verses have varied over the centuries, but this is the set I chose to use. It's called "Hymn" instead of its original name because it's inspiring by spiritual music from around the world, drawing from Gregorian and Far-Eastern chant for the core of its somber construction.

Instrumental version]

Amazing grace! How sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me!
I once was lost, but now am found;
Was blind, but now I see.

'Twas grace that taught my heart to fear,
And grace my fears relieved;
How precious did that grace appear
The hour I first believed.

Through many dangers, toils and snares,
I have already come;
'Tis grace that brought me safe thus far,
And grace will lead me home.

Yes, when this flesh and heart shall fail,
And mortal life shall cease,
I shall possess, within the veil,
A life of joy and peace.

When we've been there ten thousand years,
Bright, shining as the sun,
We've no less days to sing God's praise
Than when we'd first begun.

Amazing grace! How sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me!
I once was lost, but now am found;
Was blind, but now I see.

Hymn (instrumental)

[My take on a classic, "Amazing Grace." The verses have varied over the centuries, but this is the set I chose to use. It's called "Hymn" instead of its original name because it's inspiring by spiritual music from around the world, drawing from Gregorian and Far-Eastern chant for the core of its somber construction.

Lyrics]

Amazing grace! How sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me!
I once was lost, but now am found;
Was blind, but now I see.

'Twas grace that taught my heart to fear,
And grace my fears relieved;
How precious did that grace appear
The hour I first believed.

Through many dangers, toils and snares,
I have already come;
'Tis grace that brought me safe thus far,
And grace will lead me home.

Yes, when this flesh and heart shall fail,
And mortal life shall cease,
I shall possess, within the veil,
A life of joy and peace.

When we've been there ten thousand years,
Bright, shining as the sun,
We've no less days to sing God's praise
Than when we'd first begun.

Amazing grace! How sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me!
I once was lost, but now am found;
Was blind, but now I see.

Hymn (featuring Liz Kretschmer)

[Intrumental version]

She still whispers soft in rebellious smoke,
Light stolen from her eye, and
Memories loom.

And there are burns on the table,
Never to heal.

Hours pass
Burn aflame
Stage descends
Melt away

Whispers soft
Wax drowns her
Rebellious smoke
Ravenous

Dances still
Pray the light
Whispers soft
End of light

(Set ablaze
Cast your light
Fateful thread
Fraying strand
Give me life
Til you're dead)

Dances still
Burn aflame
Scalding wax
Never heal

Wax (instrumental)

[Lyrics]

She whispers soft rebellious smoke
And there are burns on the table
Never to heal

Hours pass
Burn aflame
Stage descends
Melt away

Whispers soft
Wax drowns her
Rebellious smoke
Ravenous

Dances still
Pray the light
Whispers soft
End of light

(Set ablaze
Cast your light
Fateful thread
Fraying strand
Give me life
Til you're dead)

Dances still
Burn aflame
Scalding wax
Never heal

Independent musician, dabbler in electronic sound magic, melter of hearts and faces alike.

B.A. Music Theory & Composition, West Chester University of Pennsylvania;
A.A. Music, focus in Jazz Guitar, Bucks County Community College

Anathema (2020)

Neurarchy