Lyrics
ice, falling
rust, tears
stratify, isolate
city gates are shut
lost, gravestones
words, wait
petrified, analyzed
they cannot return
Acid rain seals your fears,
drowning out the land.
Statues crying rusted tears-
withered, outstretched hands.
Fading life, winter months,
season of decay;
city gates are frozen shut,
ideals lose their way.
Wintry chains hold you still
no chance to comply.
You must summon all your will
Otherwise you die.
We're striving to ascend
to the peaks of time.
Without a start or an end,
only endless chimes.
Though the end can't be seen,
we have come this far.
All this wretched icy sheen
can't keep us apart.
Time and space, we behold
hope and misery.
The earth abides, we grow old;
all life struggles as do we.
ice, falling
rust, tears
stratify, isolate
city gates are shut
days, moonlight
cold, white
prisoners, memories
wind alone was heard
birth, struggle
cusp, death
necrify, decompose
matter is the law
earth, sunlight
spark, growth
organisms, nourishment
cycle is complete
Time and fear intertwined;
they will never know.
All the people stumble blind
hiding behind walls.
Fields of dead are closer still,
closer than we think.
Beckoning with lifeless chill,
strengthening the link.
We walk among the gravestones,
singing our songs.
Feast and kiss above the dead -
we could do no wrong.
chorus
birth, struggle
cusp, death
necrify, decompose
matter is the law
earth, sunlight
spark, growth
organisms, nourishment
cycle is complete
lost, gravestones
words, wait
petrified, analyzed
they cannot return
life, fading
blood, fear
agonize, justify
clinging to their dreams
ice, falling
rust, tears
stratify, isolate
city gates are shut
days, moonlight
cold, white
prisoners, memories
wind alone was heard
birth, struggle
cusp, death
necrify, decompose
matter is the law
earth, sunlight
spark, growth
organisms, nourishment
cycle is complete
Hearing no other sound
we can only tell:
this, the land to which we're bound,
is a frozen hell.
Pray to clouds and crosses,
our will can't impose.
Don't talk of dust and roses -
life just comes and goes.
History dying fast,
every memory fades.
Behold our future and our past:
fate had been obeyed.
chorus
chorus
Feel the sun on your face;
thaw the pains of the past.
You've seen the future of this place,
and you know it will not last.
It shrieks and screams and wails
as it blazes down the concrete pathways,
like an exhausted comet nearing its end.
The seas of mortality part
to make way for this armored angel,
knowing well what divine acts it shall perform.
Guided by beacons from heavenly satellites,
it is fervent in its actions and has no regrets;
but sometimes it asks for meaning and finds no answer.
Driven to folly, fueled by hope, and met with futility;
it knows only rapid fluctuations between sadness and joy.
The fate of humanity lies in the balance! Make haste!
Speeding to the weak and wounded and dying and dead,
it brings hope to those with eyes to see it.
But the business is as grim as it is urgent,
for the ultimate result is failure.
Unlike its evident immortality,
visible in steel and wires,
we are vulnerable mortals.
We can be prolonged:
but not saved.
We grapple with the foolish terror
that we've had since birth,
as the blood drips ever deeper
into the fertile Earth.
Beating hearts, they can be stopped;
fleeting hope, like failing crops.
Wither, wither, fade and die,
we peer into the angel's eye.
Your mighty armor shall protect us
from the grasping claws of death.
It is your duty to protect us
with your final breath.
The culmination of our deeds:
we hear the shrieking, all around.
Metal streaking through the streets,
salvation waiting to be found.
Mortal weakness all-pervasive,
this we cannot see.
We curse the heavens, though we hope
that they will set us free.
We are told, every day,
we need only work and spend.
To do so helps democracy
and makes us decent citizens.
Evacuate the poisoned land;
to our homes we can't return.
We'll build new castles, all of sand,
after all our bridges burn.
Curb the drive to escape -
your gasoline will not suffice.
You are bound to this place;
all your children pay the price.
Promises are made everyday;
some we keep, some we break.
From these promises
we cannot escape.
We see the snow falling down.
Another year has come and gone.
We know the trees will die, and regrow:
the unbroken march of eternity.
We stare in awe at the might of our race;
building and advancing is just what we do.
And yet when we stop and look at this place,
we can't understand how this ugliness accrued.
Surrounded by millions, all anonymous faces,
we struggle to make sense of the world which we ourselves built.
We created a landscape of scary places,
and became a nation of scary people.
Our cities will crumble and collapse,
our bodies will decay and rot.
We see the snow falling down,
another year has come and gone -
and we know one day,
our leaves won't grow back.
Great machines, the epitome of mankind's supremacy
over the Earth that bore it,
tower over their mortal creators.
They toil tirelessly through day and night,
assuring the demise of man's eternal enemy.
The blood that once coursed through the veins is now viscous and cold.
The vital sustenance that they once carried: now a rejected poison.
The orchestra of mechanical woe echoes across the landscape which once lived,
culling all sentience out from their organic hosts.
Without pause, without err, the advance is steady
towards a beacon of enigmatic darkness,
echoing the sweetest whispers into the ears of man.
Despite infinite logic and rationale
each step taken was fueled by greed and lust,
and each step taken was promised to be the last.
The essence of man, now a warped husk,
a digital remnant of a once profound life-force:
willingly sacrificed in the name of progress.
Buildings looming, overhead,
blotting out the sky.
We wonder what life was like without them,
we cannot fathom why.
The sun casts light, through narrow cracks
upon the privileged few.
Foliage creeps in forgotten corners,
trying to sprout anew.
Corporations, computations,
we're subject to their whims.
Calmly controlling the populations-
cities rotting from within.
What once stood new, proud, and tall,
the beacons of our race-
now crumbled, withered, rotted, hollow,
this sick, decrepit place.
Extensive physical decay,
in the night and the cold.
Veins expand and contract,
we're growing rusted, worn and old.
Extensive physical decay,
we do not know when it began;
it has been drawing ever closer
since the dawn of man.
Extensive physical decay,
it grinds us to the bone;
our every movement is foreseen
from the bullet-ridden throne.
Gaseous fumes from the depths, arise from sidewalk cracks
raining down from acid clouds, every drop is black.
Buildings tower overhead, heralding the way
synchronized, euthanized, a tiny price to pay.
Tyranny of the time clock,
we're thrown into these gears -
clench your fist, break the lock,
abandon all your fears.
Forgive my urge to destroy
and build this land anew.
The time has come for courage;
this rot must be removed.
Extensive physical decay,
in the night and the cold.
Veins expand and contract,
we're growing rusted, worn and old.
Extensive physical decay,
we do not know when it began;
it has been drawing ever closer
since the dawn of man.
Extensive physical decay,
it grinds us to the bone;
our every movement is foreseen
from the bullet-ridden throne.
To the past, this is our homage;
for the future, this is our creed.
Long ago, we killed our gods
now there are only machines.
There's nowhere to run,
there's nowhere to hide.
It's nothing to fear-
just let them inside.
They've always pleaded that they needed
some reason to live their lives;
voices unheeded, ills untreated,
their minds have become hard drives.
The blood was drained from their veins
and replaced with chipsets, wires and solder.
Their skin was flayed, and bones exchanged
for cyborg limbs and electric shock collars.
Once they thought, but now they're taught
to exist with eyes shut closed.
Once they fought, but now they ought
to exist in peaceful repose.
The state is pleased, the masses appeased;
their salvation did not come too late.
And what foresees all of their needs?
Electricity, the divinely chosen mate.
Contemporary media successfully equates material belongings and physical gratification with personal happiness. This stimulates an intense demand for products and services: creating a high-stress nation of overworked laborers while simultaneously destroying traditional cultural values. This is an excellent societal structure for profit-seekers, but is bereft of respect for both man as a being of intellect and for the Earth as a sacred entity.
Advanced commercial techniques include the utilization of pop music, color schemes, or the adoption of celebrities, which all act in coordination to reinforce the notion that material wealth leads to happiness. Because so many people are exposed to these notions on a daily basis, they internalize these sentiments as their own and they act upon them - by acting as obedient consumers, they financially support the companies that control their culture, their values, and their history.
They control culture, they control time.
Through the media, they control your minds.
They take your heart, your body and your soul-
controlling you through information overload.
In a darkened place I lie,
some forgotten corner
of some forgotten street.
Eyes open:
frozen,
fixated -
on the lucid memories
which vex my eyes and ears;
a living, breathing nightmare,
an endless serenade of terror.
The scattered crackle of gunfire
in the darkness
and the final shrieks
of hardened veterans.
The stink of blood, the taste of smoke,
the feel of machette against bone -
the constant, pervasive sight
of grinning corpses.
I close my eyes;
the nightmares do not abate!
Though our vision then was murky
in the haze of those dark, foul swamps,
now we see perfectly,
constantly,
incessantly.
Our memory has been crystallized;
a testament to the power of the synaptic brain
and the frailty of the psychological mind.
We killed and we died,
everyday.
There was no beginning
and there was no end.
We all believed in something or other,
but belief doesnt matter
when there's only a Rumor of War.
History says that many died
in those vast sea-green jungles,
but the dead do not still draw breath -
no.
Those men remain,
bunkered and burrowed,
but not buried.
they live on in that living hell
because that living hell
lives on in them.
It's just another minute;
it's just another hour.
It's just another day,
just like any other day;
it passes away.
It's just another year,
there are so many more;
we have so many more.
It's just another lifetime,
it's just another life;
they all have come and gone.
Yesterday exists no more,
and tomorrow may never come.
You live for the moment;
you forget yourself.
Past becomes the future.
Hours and years, they bleed away.
Our bodies wither and die,
time is running out.
You forget what is inside,
you destroy what is inside.
You destroy all of your time.
It's time to take control,
it's time to take control.
Surrender all control
it's time to take control
surrender all control, control, control!
Our lives fade away
like melting flesh from the hand.
We clutch the hourglass
but we cannot grasp the sand.
Time, we can't discern it;
the facts allude us still.
We couldn't take control
even if we had the will.
Hours turn to years,
we're trapped inside this place:
some forgotten museum relic,
just a skull without a face.
Memories fade away,
photographs turn to dust.
Hearts can ever really break-
they only slowly rust.
Frozen in our terror,
we are so immobilized.
Losing track of all ideals,
staring at the sky.
Our faeries and our fantasies,
they all burn to the ground;
Crushed beneath the bloody boots:
we dare not make a sound.
Organisms all give way
to the might of our machines.
We stare in terror as we hope
we won't be swallowed by the steam.
Its deep inside us,
the ticking clock.
We wind the gears
but still we fear.
Our lives fade away
like melting flesh from the hand.
We clutch the hourglass
but we cannot grasp the sand.
Our faeries and our fantasies,
they all burn to the ground;
Crushed beneath the bloody boots:
we dare not make a sound.
Memories fade away,
photographs turn to dust.
Hearts can ever really break-
they only slowly rust.
teardrops evaporate on contact
The rhythms of season
and time
wash away the throes
of revolution and hopelessness.
Patient cycles
bury all mortal myths and prophecies,
oblivious to laughing children
and synchronized marching.
Falling from the sky
eternally:
the breath of a lover's whisper
hidden in water and stone.
We are still human; we're not defeated,
forever thinking and breathing.
They try to change us-
corporate exorcism-
with money and syntax and beeping.
Day after day we're pushed further away,
from the good earth that bore us, and from the fresh air-
but we are still human, we are not broken,
we can see past that degenerate glare.
Their ideas are tired and broken,
they're lost in a globalist dream.
Our hearts go unheard, our thoughts are unspoken,
but we're not just discarded machines.
Garbled in profit and greed, nothing is as it seems.
We will fight to free our world
from shrouded lies and corrupt deeds.
Though I don't understand what's become of the world,
I won't let it swallow me.
We fight or we die,
and we will fight!
We still remember!!
Reaching, screeching, vying, dying
just to reach the distant stars;
technology conveys our yearning
though it may tear us apart.
Since the early dawn of man
it has been the primal urge
to set foot on distant lands,
and all the opposition purge.
Cooperate for just a moment,
take the next unsteady step -
ignite the flame, oh so potent,
everyone holds their breath.
Marching, stomping, crushing, grinding,
we stand for what is just and right.
Hear the factories a-churning
every day and every night.
Fists are clenched, torches burning,
our enemies will know our might;
toward our glory we are whirling,
for our god we'll always fight.
Into the distant vast we fly -
where we soar, we do not know.
Without space, without time,
our feeble blood tries to flow
into that black infinite sky;
towards the unknown fate we go.
The future bright, we're in our prime,
we prepare the final blow.
Our ancestors gazed with wonder
toward the sacred, holy skies.
Now we drool for wealth and plunder:
the only words we speak are lies.
To reach the cold and empty space,
we adapt accordingly:
fervent research, space race,
we strive for greatness lovingly.
Marching, stomping, crushing, grinding,
we stand for what is just and right.
Hear the factories a-churning
every day and every night.
Fists are clenched, torches burning,
our enemies will know our might;
toward our glory we are whirling,
for our god we'll always fight.
Since the early dawn of man
it has been the primal urge
to set foot on distant lands,
and all the opposition purge.
Cooperate for just a moment,
take the next unsteady step -
ignite the flame, oh so potent,
everyone holds their breath.
Planets soon grow very small
as the thrust goes ever on;
we fight and die, rise and fall,
burn the corpses by the ton.
Planets soon grow very small
as the thrust goes ever on;
we fight and die, rise and fall,
from ourselves we cannot run.
Planets soon grow very small
as the thrust goes ever on;
we fight and die, rise and fall,
our grand designs have come undone.
Reaching, screeching, vying, dying
just to reach the distant stars;
technology conveys our yearning
though it may tear us apart.
We were all once,
we were all once
little laughing children,
little laughing children.
We go to school everyday,
we learn so many things.
Abstract words go unnoticed:
yesterday's lessons are today's idle stories.
We watch the news everyday,
we bear remote witness.
We see suffering, place-names we can't pronounce;
apathy is all we've grown to know.
Books are all around us,
data limitless -
but the facts are overwhelming,
wisdom still eludes.
Years go by,
and we grow old.
We see children laughing:
they seem so small to us now.
We listen to songs
of love and heartbreak,
of misery and justice
we understand them now.
We try to look ahead:
we're sure it will be better
for tomorrow's children,
but it's not our choice to make.
Passing down our knowledge
is such a noble task,
but life cannot be taught
by processed words alone.
The vital lessons learned
through hardship and resolve
impart timeless wisdom
despite what we condone.
Will they remember,
or just pretend?
Will they repeat it
all over again?
Circuitry connects the world,
in this modern age.
Into this epoch we've been hurled
without tribal names.
Our past has been forgotten,
although it haunts us still.
Ideals are gone and rotten:
they died up on the hill.
Dimming torches in our hand,
fading lights guide our way -
all direction fading fast,
glory of forgotten days.
We wonder why we cannot feel -
only to the circuitry we kneel.
Ones and zeros bridge our lives,
despite all our futile rage.
Human feelings digitized,
we helplessly turn the page.
Time, it marches onward,
blind to our will.
Technological stewards,
we facilitate the kills.
As the focus fades and dims,
we follow every gust of wind.
We seek to slake our earthly whims:
we've severed all our connections.
Dimming torches in our hand,
fading lights guide our way -
all direction fading fast,
glory of forgotten days.
As the focus fades and dims,
we follow every gust of wind.
We seek to slake our earthly whims:
we've severed all our connections.
Am Ende des Lebens,
Sicher ist sicherheit.
Schließen deine Augen
für die Ewigkeit.
Wir sind die Gottheiten:
willkommen zu deine Endezeit.
Du hast unendliche Wissen;
Auskunft ohne Wahrheit.
Fährst du nach dem Jenseits
hier du bist nicht allein.
Ohne Angst, ohne Stolz,
hier ist deine Heim.
Eine Leben ohne Richtung,
eine Seele ohne Licht.
Wir sind deiner Urteil;
deine Zeit ist fertig.
Dein Herz gegen Wahrheit,
es ist unserer Verhandlung.
Auf den Gottes Waagschale
wir entscheiden deine Zukunft.
Eine Leben ohne Richtung,
eine Seele ohne Licht.
Wir sind deiner Urteil;
deine Zeit ist fertig.
Deine wüste Wahrheit:
der Totenfresser hat hunger.
Eine schlechtes Vergangenheit,
deine Leben war wüste.
Am Ende des Lebens,
Sicher ist sicherheit.
Schließen deine Augen
für die Ewigkeit.
Wir sind die Gottheiten:
willkommen zu deine Endezeit.
Du hast unendliche Wissen;
Auskunft ohne Wahrheit.
Fährst du nach dem Jenseits
hier du bist nicht allein.
Ohne Angst...
Dein Herz gegen Wahrheit,
es ist unserer Verhandlung.
Auf den Gottes Waagschale
wir entscheiden deine Zukunft.
Eine Leben ohne Richtung,
eine Seele ohne Licht.
Wir sind deiner Urteil;
deine Zeit ist fertig.
Deine wüste Wahrheit:
der Totenfresser hat hunger.
Eine schlechtes Vergangenheit,
deine Leben war wüste.
Deine Leben war wüste,
deine Leben war wüste.
Der Totenfresser -
der Totenfresser hat Hunger.
Ammit hat die Hunger...
Altered, skewed, irregular
sensory evaluation.
Synapses process data
in ways most cannot grasp.
Sonic inputs cause disturbance
through the air and in your veins;
perhaps it's faulty evolution,
or memories of distant pasts.
You stagger underneath the pressure
of this sensory barrage.
Sights and sounds and tactile feelings
suddenly blend into one.
None can explain or define it;
they call you mad, lock you away.
Unwilling prisoner of your special prowess,
left to contemplate the empty barren walls.
Deprived of that kinetic feeling
drawn from sonic energies,
you bide your time alone and silent:
you can bring them to their knees.
In times past they would have blessed you
as a prophet or a spirit:
oracle of the ancestors, holder of the gift.
They have no room for you now
in their world of endless gray.
Hold still and be patient, my dear,
you'll show them the way.
Science shows the properties
of soundwaves and matter;
through the numbing numbers,
nature is explained.
But you have access to the secrets
not yet revealed.
Doctors and medicines and drugs
cannot understand you.
You are different:
beautiful and strong.
In times past they would have blessed you
as a prophet or a spirit:
oracle of the ancestors, holder of the gift.
They have no room for you now
in their world of endless gray.
Hold still and be patient, my dear,
you'll show them the way.
You'll show them the way.
Many empty planets
surround our lonely earth;
distant stars, black and hollow,
husks of lifeless dirt.
Subatomic mating,
a viscous entity.
Grinding stone and shifting rain
for eternity.
Contingent molecules,
experiments in flux.
Teeming creatures of the past
all evolved by luck.
Spirals writhe in the depths
stoke the anvil's fire,
all called up in time to the
the funeral pyre.
From the seas to the land
all the beauty we make:
mankind rises, and conquers,
our will cannot break.
But happenstance brought us here
across every shore;
and for all of our efforts
death is our reward.
Bullets streaking through the air,
obliterate with perfect care.
To the future we must speed;
this violence is all we need.
Round and round, the wheel of life.
Endless day, we kill the night.
Now our future's straight ahead;
hurry up or we'll be dead.
Evolution takes its toll:
frozen corpses, frozen souls.
Time, it swallows everything.
Nothing can bring them back again.
Every fossil that is found
is a warning in the ground;
because that which is dominant,
is fleeting and impermanent.
Evolution takes its toll:
frozen corpses, frozen souls.
Time, it swallows everything.
Nothing can bring them back again.
Monuments,
monuments to our race.
Permanent,
permanent until erased.
History,
history that we claim.
Emancipates,
emancipates us from blame.
Technology,
technology that we weave.
Progress,
progress in which we believe.
Existence,
existence merely a cycle.
Success,
success is never final.
Consolidate our rule
over all the land,
with our bloody hands,
we make the Earth kneel.
Enhanced by mighty tools,
we are walking gods;
behold our facade
of plastic and steel.
Murder the bodies,
and smother the souls.
Extend our control
to no avail.
Power embodied,
only to decline.
We all wait in line
to drive in the nails.
We engorge the brain
with ideas and facts;
our vision exact
throughout all of time.
Greatness we feign,
but as the genius grows
the body warps and slows:
it withers and dies.
Inventiveness solves
the greatest of problems
except our customs,
they can't be dismissed.
Every question dissolved
unearths a hundred more;
we cannot win this war,
yet still we persist.
Our charts and our words
are merely straight lines;
we cannot consign
that time is a cycle.
Try to move forward,
but we end up behind;
life just rewinds:
success is never final.
We behold the world wonders, left by peoples long ago.
We glimpse, for a moment, the world through their eyes:
they too knew rule and greatness.
Towers, temples, ziggurats still amaze our modern minds -
but those worlds were toppled and shattered,
by armies, drought, or some religious tide.
They thought they would rule forever; this, too, our people assume.
But what if everything we've built around us
is just an elaborate tomb?
Convert the unbelievers,
and spread the holy word.
Our prayers must be heard -
it's what we've always done.
Now zealots mad with fever
destroy what we have built;
our people, worn with guilt,
can't stop what has begun.
We combat every plague
with microbes and machines;
the people all believe
that they're untouchable.
But promises are vague,
and fine print hard to read;
the doctors hear you plead,
but they too are terminal.
Inventiveness solves
the greatest of problems
except our customs,
they can't be dismissed.
Every question dissolved
unearths a hundred more;
we cannot win this war,
yet still we persist.
Our charts and our words
are merely straight lines;
we cannot consign
that time is a cycle.
Try to move forward,
but we end up behind;
life just rewinds:
success is never final.
Inventiveness solves
the greatest of problems
except our customs,
they can't be dismissed.
Every question dissolved
unearths a hundred more;
we cannot win this war,
yet still we persist.
Our charts and our words
are merely straight lines;
we cannot consign
that time is a cycle.
Try to move forward,
but we end up behind;
life just rewinds:
success is never final.