1. Weltschmerz

(intro)

2. Sink Fast Let Go

As always, the will and desire
Passed off as a fault of the unlearned

Sink fast, let go

To live this, but not to subscribe (to God)
Means we can halt our own rapid decline

Sink fast, let go

No product of an almighty here
Cast in no creators image
Trust in our own complexities
To exit, not degenerate

What joy to linger
Sink fast, let go
At behest of the appointed
Sink fast, let go
Dregs for the appointed

No product of an almighty here
Life's not precious at its fringes
He didn't help you though trials and tribulations
So you can't bar the exit door

Scream out for shutdown
Sink fast, let go
At behest of the appointed
Sink fast, let go
Cling for the appointed
Dregs for the appointed

Life pushes major choices
And this is the most informed
We do as we please

When all we finally possess
Is the shadow of our former self
We do as we please

3. Fatalist

Though we later may walk
In a valley in a shadow of death
What should we logically fear?
Perhaps the complacent urge for a deity
To make us whole and guide us through
To fulfil an image that is cloudy at best

Where was the help previously
When appeals went unheard?
Huge effort expended in devotion
For nothing in return
Grimly clinging, predetermined
To prop up an image that is cloudy at best
Resigned rigid, predetermined
To covet a vision that is forced on the rest

Life becomes an exercise in cutting down your options
Existing becomes a joyless parade to the end

Life becomes a platform from which to attack free thought
Existing becomes a prison where self-discovery's forbidden

The fatalist

Any fool starting afresh would surely ditch this
After two-thousand years of schism
Only irreligious hearts can do the saving

4. Puritanical Punishment Beating

Automatons strayed from their flock
Cast as the embodiment of ruination

Resounding words from God
And words are all they ever are
Astounding deeds from faith
That never quite astound

Moral yardstick beats us senseless
Observe some wills being broken
Blocked the clear sight

Better an outcast than a forced sycophant
Better a head free from religious checks

No protection – oh well, take a slow sexual death
No salvation through safe birth control (!)

Same sex, different habits – who gives a fucking shit
This won't make the species unfurl

Better an outcast than a forced sycophant
Better a head free from religious checks

Slavishly steered by redemption
Stricken by Biblical wrath
When solutions lie in compassionate logic
Not hearsay but the will of man

5. Well All Is Said And Done

Blindness feeds the world to madness
Faith's crumbling, there's no doubt about it
Religion and science fighting a new kind of war

Helpless – wander the streets in desperation
Fearless – to the path they tread
Shameless – the powers that butcher
Ignorant to the deeds that they commit

When all is said and done
Heaven lies in my heart
No slave to beliefs that propagate pain
When all is said and done
Heaven lies in our hearts
This life is a gift to be lived and loved

Fracturing the structure of nature
Iconic catalysts to slaughter
A stalemate bursting bound by contradictions

Heartless – divine blueprints of hatred
Selfless – Diseased masterplans
Shameless – the powers that butcher
Ignorant to the deeds that they commit

Decoded treachery shielding the tyranny
Black Bible tyrants behind masks of righteousness
Relentless – the onslaught of misunderstanding
Descending into a unified chaos

One more chance for a shot at redemption
Lost within, can we summon the might?

6. Freedom Is The Wage Of Sin

Mandated since none of them knew
How to transcend moral codes that are presumed

Unthinkable?
Inconceivable?
Cower in a corner and keep the heresy stowed

Freedom is the wage of sin

No universal (theoretical) force of influence
Should dictate behaviour that we can't handle ourselves

Freedom is the wage of sin

Permission – the abdication of our self-determination

Think... think for a minute
Of centuries of perpetuating
Bloodshed, deception, oppression

Think... think for a minute
Of centuries of subjugating
Martyrs superstitions

The evidence is damning and conclusive –
That intervention
Is not advancing or easing hardships
Still we're strangely so duty-bound

7. In Deference

Ethically aligned to the cause –
Or so I thought
A cause that decried the exploits
Where masses are coerced

Often, social justice is a cynical smokescreen
Only at their bidding

Close-circuit reach – don't overstep my boundaries
Such boundaries that crumble under order

Sincerely you serve your own ends –
Do as I do
I can't tell my left from my right –
Corruption blurs

Face the wrong direction
And we risk containment
Whilst they sanction murder

Close-circuit reach quickly erases all travesties
Such travesties waved away with feeble ease

It's adjudged to be uncivil
You should be at a lower reach
Bound over
Because open thinking is an act of complicity

Leaders are leading by example
'Rights' and 'wrongs' on a sliding scale
Sit atop the order of importance
You too can reap the power harvest

The 'deviant' young get in the way
We become suitably distraught
Whilst their judges take lives near and afar
And reap the power harvest

8. Short-Lived

In and out of boxes
And herded into packs
Get swept away on a current to mediocrity

Forcing pleasure visually, not offending their ears –
How tedious
Maximum restriction, Minimum enlightenment –
How tedious

Approval to be worthwhile
Toiling to make the grade
Don't relax on a wide view
Seek pardon toward the grave

In and out of boxes
And herded into packs
Get swept away on a current of inadequacy

Swallowing what's 'right' and 'wrong'
Grasping the unproven rule –
How tedious

Approval to be worthwhile
Toiling to make the grade
Don't relax on a wide view
Seek pardon toward the grave
Living to actually live
Mercy without faith's weight
I'll relax on a wide view
No apologies toward my grave

Drudgery prevails on the checklist of faith
So little time given moral restraints
Cut loose the sinners who can barely be named
Drudgery prevails on the checklist of faith

9. Identity Crisis

Fly their flags upside down,
Then watch the sky come falling in
And ranks will swell to quell

These separatists
And our identity crisis
This great identity crisis

Traitor to 'my people'
No, you're a traitor to yourself
Enslaved by hierarchy

Demanding dues
Through this identity crisis
This clear identity crisis

Going down on one knee
To bear the load of some inglorious burden
Acting accordingly hastens death to the individual

You roam in packs
Smash the fringes to remind the nation-led

Of us 'fifth columnists'
And our identity crisis
This clear identity crisis

10. Shattered Existence

Chained and shackled, besieged with mistrust
Life a handout that pushes its luck
Betrayal a virus that hides in us all
Buried deep down where integrity has drowned

Oppression ruled by bloodshed
Is this the feeling of a shattered existence?

Bound and gagged, no value or use
Unjust enforcers policing the truth
Visceral dictatorship stripped to the nerve
Designs of entrapment that fake its concern

Oppression ruled by bloodshed
Is this the feeling of a shattered existence?
Punished or purified – who has the answers?
Deliver us from a shattered existence

Morality poured down the drain
Sickened from the germs of our atrocities
Chameleon serpents breed in the corruption

Ground down in squalor
Their negative bacteria thrives on the innocent
Cancerous corporate elite

Instincts of fear awakening our resistance
Marauding hordes

11. Eyes Right Out

Don't look upon the spoils with accusing gaze
Don't insinuate that this stranglehold should really break
Don't jab conspiratorial fingers in that direction
Don't hold up to the light their dregs of purified poison

Gently you'll be dissuaded, brought around

Don't work out that the suffering mind knows when to die
Don't drink from jewelled chalices and wonder why
Don't steal back from exploiters that stripped you bare
Don't arrive back to thinking that he's got your share

Somehow you've been dissuaded and shut out

Objections raised all softened to a murmur
Wanton blasphemers shrink down in this vacuum

Loudest base pleasures stifled to a whimper
Colour and shade is so bland in this vacuum

Repentant – you've been muzzled in their open arms

12. Warped Beyond Logic

Absorb this, relent
Approach this in a trance

Monoliths raised – oh aching faith
Monoliths blotting your landscape

They'll try to coax you in,
But they'll never snare your mind
They'll try to cast aspersions
On your failing, Godless life

Stare with indifference into the invisible eye
Who so died for many sins –
Those were theirs, not mine

They'll try to flail you
With a blast of righteous air
They'll try to break your stride
Until you really walk the path of the damned

The Pentecost, no Testament
Could complement my consciousness

They'll move to turn you
Against yourself and where you stand
They'll isolate you
To the point where non-compliance equals banishment

Theorise, marginalize, chastise

13. Rabid Wolves (For Christ)

Believing is deceiving
The Earth is to be scorched
Doctrines crushed underfoot –
The very doctrines that perpetuate your cult

Archaic ways that would take the place
Are just an inverted spin on the regimented code
Divisive and regressive from the harmony of all

Must shoulder the fallen
The weak are not mere fodder
And that's what's called free-thinking –
Distanced from ALL Gods

14. Deaf And Dumbstruck (Intelligent Design)

Roll out a yarn incessantly
Tracing the thread to where?
Deaf and dumbstruck –
Plugging up holes with dead air

Gone deaf and dumbstruck
More piety to dumbfound us

When they can't wave the head of the prophet
Natural life needs some spin
Deaf and dumbstruck –
Inanimate myth gets an in

Gone deaf and dumbstruck
More piety to distract us
Deaf and dumbstruck

Try to walk with some proof before you can run
On all the conjecture embraced with aplomb

Come enthrall us

Miracle workers – these false orators
Set back life itself with fairytale laws

Come enthrall us

15. Persona Non Grata

Trodden down like shit underfoot
Be the downside to others upsides
Last one to the table – just starve

You'll get what you're given

This is set in stone from the ivory towers
Perception above all –
When you're face down in the dirt

Irreversibly persona non grata –
A figure off ill distinction
Persona non grata –
The place for blame diversion

No matter the plaudits I earn
The whoring and scoring for points
To strive to be superficial
I'll live by your status

This is knowing your place beneath the ivory towers
Not a going concern
But a lowly beast of burden

16. Smear Campaign

Cheated the way from fringe to elite
Clique of stylists
Rounded illogic skipping a beat
To a dead cert

Dry-heaving charges and bursting the abscess
With a forked tongue
Bloated with courage
And spewing with cloying self-importance

Drop your targets
Aim sights lower
Leave unblemished those with real power

Smear Campaign

Stroke two faces
Nests to feather
Leave unblemished those with real power

A thousand cuts
Beat yourself proud
Leave unblemished those with real power