Organ by Matt Helliwell
https://soundcloud.com/matt-helliwell-580311465

Lyrics:
Flags at the station - the morning's upended,
Dichotomy pushed 'til the spill is engendered,
And this is who we are - the mop and the bucket,
The cat in the henhouse of all that is crooked.
The city is poised, on a crumbling escarpment,
As doors are kicked down to two-bedroom apartments.
Men branded with titles like 'fascists' and 'thieves',
Through the throng they are thrust toward Town Hall relief.

Eyes have amassed in the dust of the square,
Some swollen with loathing, some sore with despair,
We called for the runners but the beasts were inside,
Genuflecting in prayer with cold sweat on their hides.
There's frenzy afoot as fresh hands join the cause,
There's impatience in numbers, scant time for remorse.
I remember you well - you stood on a chair,
With the sun on your cheeks and blood in your hair.

Screams crack the tension, a face at the door,
The condemned collapses, face first on the floor,
But that won't suffice, won't dispel the hunger,
A union impels to strike, split asunder.
The figure is dragged, limp in abandon,
All snivelling and hopeless and beaten in tandem.
Ecstasy reigns and it's reason that's ruled,
Today tips its fine hat to yesterday's fools.

Another one for the precipice...

Los Matadores de Ronda (demo)

I tried in vain to remember your surname - what's in a sir if his heart hides the same notions of romance or distinct lack thereof as the next boy whose father taught him to fight but not to love?

You with the bridle, crushing my chest. The cuckoo calls two with its young in the nest of another and lovers pull lest one should push. A bird in the hand is in no rush to be replaced.

We marvelled at all the fickle gods of the West and fanned out our virtues when, at your behest, we spoke with transparency until we turned blue. Well, you fathomed freedom so, tell me now, what did you?

Carotene, comfort and conjugal bliss; the sinuous road through the mud and through the piss. A softened symposium with sweet-scented words and vast swathes of people who'd each swear that they heard it first.

Chiaroscuro (demo)

A Solitary Scene at Table 4 (demo)

The Last Days of Venus as the Evening Star (demo)

Lyrics:

Don't you want to possess someone so completely,
That they can't bear to imagine their life without you?
I know, it's not so romantic when you say it out loud.

But faced with an uncertain world,
There's comfort in knowing that someone's reserved,
The rest of their life, like a parking space only for you.

Don't you want to use someone onanistically,
Offer your heart as a lure and then snatch it away?
Just enough warmth to keep her from freezing to death.

Each time you promise that there's nothing more,
Yet somebody else goes to answer the door,
As Solitude comes knocking with palms read and asks to come in.

Don't you want to hold someone under your gaze,
Pull the foundations from every friendship they've made?
Throw each bone of contention on the burning remains.

Every act serves to strengthen the bond,
Narcissus transfixed at the side of the pond,
As, vacantly, she lets her dress fall and starts to wade in.

Don't you want to crush someone?
Don't you want to crush someone?
Don't you want to crush someone?
Don't you want to crush someone?
Don't you want to crush someone?
Don't you want to crush someone?
Don't you want to crush someone?
Don't you want to crush someone?

Crush (demo)

Ice Cream for Dogs (demo)

On Imminence (demo)

Lyrics:

Nodding my head to a poet by the door, 
He smokes cigarette after cigarette and melts into the floor.
The puddle of him gurgles out a final furore,
As phones fizz and crackle with the latest scores.
A prince and a pauper share a toast to regret,
The witticisms run dry but the appetite's whet,
And I'm taking all that I can get until closing time.

There's a man who's laid his virtue to sleep in a manger,
And St Bartholomew's using broken glass to carve the word danger,
Into a table top as a woman takes exception,
She calls him a scourge and then she spits in his direction.
Now the vandal smiles but he's got cabernet eyes,
And in his holy fist is still the makeshift knife.
And I'm hoping my face looks alright, until closing time.

There's a caped figure lurking in the shadows to one side,
Running his tongue across teeth so white,
And serrated that it's hard not to steal a look,
As he eyes up the waitress like she's dangling from a hook.
She's used to tips, but not of this kind:
Take a handful of chives to bed with you tonight.
I'm shielding the light from my eyes, until closing time.

A sumptuous feast for a family of six,
And a jester entertains them with a selection of tricks.
The maternal head separates from the mother,
But in the blink of an eye, she's replaced by another.
"The show must go on!", cries a baseball cap,
And raucous laughter gives way into a grateful cap.
And I'm searching the floor for scraps, until closing time.

Miss Colombia's ear's trained on the booth next to hers,
There's a gang of young men in black heels and red shirts,
And she's appalled at their use of a dirty word,
She sends them a round of cocktails ill-advisedly stirred.
Now the table's tipped over at the scent of a rat,
And the shirts and the heels breed brass knuckles and bats,
And I'm emptying my head into a stranger's lap until closing time.

Mehmet II is waiting outside,
With plans for deforestation and regicide,
'Persona non grata' says the writing on the wall,
But the ballpoint is bettered by the canonball.
Now, there's a nugget of wisdom in the breaking of bread,
Defying the laws of the living and the dead.
And I'm pumping a corpse full of lead, until closing time.

Closing Time (demo)

Lyrics:

There's an island, if you choose to swim out through the grey, where shadows caress in the haze of the day. Myriad and black-clad, wolves of the street, the unfurling dahlia on which age is skin deep.

Each creature crawls with an ear to the ground and beauty is coloured by the coverage of sound. Like a great ticking insect, boring through wood; a time-eating machine with a heart under the hood.

The gluttonous glugging of gutters gorged on blood - everyone nicks a veins with arms raised to the flood. Condemned to birth under burden of oath, to drink in the ether and live in the both.

Down in the alley, no numbers or names, just spray paint and steel that sits snug in its frame. Each soul is sifted for a sorting of sins and if yours is too light then you're not coming in.

Limbs kick and punch out, here jagged, there lithe. Like eels tangled in a bag, deculted they writhe. There's an Epicurean feast for those with the teeth and stomachs for that which the unknown bequeaths.

Inside the tunnels and the fever of its, the zeal of once slaves is now mounting in waves. Tentacular quaintrelles with red mouths that swell like cyclones of fire that no water will quell.

Waterways wandering, cajoled on each side. Bilge as a boon willed and promptly imbibed. Like battery pigs, there's a pounding of feet, and backbones and ribs rattle scorched by the heat.

All portents point in opposing direction. Dionysian witnesses in civil protection. As churches are seized and repurposed, within there's an infernal glow and a soul-shaking din.

Old idols evicted, the New Faith moves in with treasures and leather as the second hand swings. An era marked each day, life in the sublime - to covet another's a sin against time.

The Sparrows (demo)

St Stephen's figured out another,
Way to make the world a better place. 
They've built churches in his honour,
And made vignettes of a worn, unshaven face. 

People pouring down through the streets in town,
Boxing Day beckons to a football ground.
The Good King takes it all in from a first floor window...

A cold-kissed midnight mass,
And gold is rarely new,
Just a lager and a cigarette will do.
Just a lager and a cigarette will do.

St Stephen calls in on his way home from work,
Brick dust underneath his fingernails.
He shares a sermon on Complexity and pubescent whims,
Before he hoists the John B's sail.

There's a woman looking over from the other side,
Blue mascara dancing round her eyes.
She writes her number on a beer mat, seals it with a kiss...

He says it's nice to be asked,
But even nicer to stay true.
Just a lager and a cigarette will do.
Just a lager and a cigarette will do.

St Stephen's got three kids but they are grown up now,
The youngest pops by from time to time.
They've all got families of their own and well-paying jobs,
Everybody says they're doing fine.

Dinner on the table and the house is warm,
Television volume on sixty-four,
His wife makes the case for a multiple of five.

Revolution's a fair idea,
But we're a mere drop in the blue.
Just a lager and a cigarette will do.
Just a lager and a cigarette will do.

St Stephen (demo)

Folk artist from Barnsley, UK.
Seeking members!

Ivan & The Devil