1. Strongarm

Pent up and chewed up at a fleeting glance
Miscontrued in the mood for assistance
Flames fanned with compliance
We all have fallen foul
And forced the striking hand
Indiscriminate and loathe
To now backtrack – see red and fight fast

Punishment is somehow
Always due somewhere down the line
Until this realisation dawns:
Spare the rod and you'll arise

Spare it! Spare the rod and you'll arise

A strong-arm is for bleak times
But spare this rod and arise

Pent up and chewed up at a fleeting glance
Miscontrued in the mood for assistance
Flames fanned with compliance
We all have fallen foul
And forced the striking hand
Indiscriminate and loathe
To now backtrack – see red and fight fast

Flurries of blows to tenuously prove that dialogue
rarely makes things right
Until this realisation dawns:
Talk it through, gain insight

Talk through! Talk it through, gain insight

A strong-arm is for bleak times
But talk it through, gain insight

So spare this rod and arise!

2. Diktat

"To have and hold for all eternity"
Limitations and amibitions are a pretext to falling short

We'll be doomed, marooned and two fatalities
Anomalies in whispered circles
For pledges we could never hope to fulfil

But if it works for you
Then it works because of you
Not a diktat from a guild
For who love is (unflinching) servitude

Castigate or deprecate – they want heads hung in shame
When a union runs its course
For pledges we could never hope to fulfil

Irrepressible, irresponsible love
Is the wild-eyed antitote to cold imperatives
Love is the wild-eyed antidote
To cold imperatives
Love is like the last day you'll ever live

So why lose that spark
When our paths begin to merge?
It's the yoke of absolutes – those pledges
We could never blight in compliance

Love is the wild-eyed antidote to cold imperatives
Love has since been hi-jacked to tether down its whims

Obey, obey, obey so the passion dilutes
Obey, obey, obey, obey, obey, obey, obey

Perhaps under angry clouds of the imagined higher force

Refrain, refrain, refrain
From ending on a high note
Refrain, refrain, refrain, refrain
Refrain, refrain, refrain

Perhaps under angry clouds of the imagined higher force
Perhaps it's this and other such constraints
From which we must divorce

3. Work To Rule

You don't need space to focus
There is no cause to dream
Compulsive gatherer leans over drifters
And the lame to get right to the prize

Stampede at expectation's peak

Blow to blow
Job to job
Work to rule, lauded one
Work to rule with derision

You don't need space to focus;
There is no cause to dream

Run a mile
Dialled in
Work to rule, pre-emptive
Work to rule, primitives

In determinate are the hours
Or minutes to happily take stock

At the point when you return to the earth
Precious little left to objectify and shun
Will you wish you'd broken ranks?
Or was 'living' still a drawback?

Indeterminate-
Your achievements just egocentric figments?

To settle down and be tranquil
The preserve of the idle
Obsessive go-getter means to surpass
Every pleasure and dumb time-waster

Stampede at expectation's peak

Take up slack
Break your back
Work to rule on the rack
Work to rule...and collapse

4. On The Brink Of Extinction

Born between chaos and hatred – a lottery of fate
We sit on the brink of extinction
The world lies in wait
Just a scratch on the surface
Of time that will wash away
We delude ourselves with the notion
That we are here to stay

As life starts to shrink
An impending state of neurosis
Will we awake from this negligent narcosis?

On the brink, the brink of extinction
We're on the brink, the brink of extinction

Locked together in a mindless campaign
It's only now we see
Appreciation is the one redemption
For all that lives and breathes
Like a virus it's conscious – impure
We have farmed disease
It's time now to step back
And find an inner peace

As life starts to shrink
An impending state of neurosis
Will we awake from this negligent narcosis?

On the brink, the brink of extinction
We're on the brink, the brink of extinction

Will we avoid a natural selection?
Do we have the right to survive the failures?
Nature, its force – the scales unbalanced
What's the next step? How do we evolve?

Can we avoid a natural selection?
Do we have the right to survive the failures?
Nature, its force – the scales unbalanced
What's the next step? What can we resolve?

5. Time Waits For No Slave

Sanitize
To blitz every lasting stain
Turning fashioned...

Heads turn
Heads to marvel at plastic landscapes
Heads to fill a vacuum of synthesized grace

Globalise
In continuum to equalise
turning littered...

Heads turn
Heads to forego distinctions to make
Heads to embrace prospects of life in a cage

Plastic landscapes, synthesized grace
Distinctions to make, life in a cage
Time waits for no slave

Just give them convenience upon pain of death
Cut out the middleman
Keep them uniformly spoon-fed
Time waits for no salve

Just give them convenience
Upon pain of fucking death
Honoured cattle-class turning fattened heads

Heads turn
Heads to enthuse in a permanent daze
Heads once longing for flaws to disassociate
Permanent daze, disassociate
Synthesized grace, life in a cage

In one breath you denounce
The authoritarian reach.
Turn of the cheek and you're basking
In the fake sunlight of its grip

6. Life And Limb

Push the envelope further from reality
Banishing the hope, interrogating strategies
Inhumane aggression, isolation jails
Forcing a confession when all else fails

To stand in judgement of a so-called offender
That represents immortal behaviour

Push the envelope from the civilised norm
Push the envelope, catastrophic storm
Stripped of life and limb by this torture germ
Stripped of life and limb just for standing firm

Naked and bounc, pain and consideration
Extremely profound, grotesque cooperation
Cruely implied, no sense of divide
Particular intensity, deception and lies

To stand in judgement of a so-called offender
That represents immortal behaviour

Government task force questioning the source
Widespread abuse
Innocent victims of power misuse

Push the envelope from the civilised norm
Push the envelope, catastrophic storm
Stripped of life and limb by this torture germ
Stripped of life and limb just for standing firm

Psychological intimidation
Traditional methods of interrogation
Polluting our culture, it's prolific, outright
For nothing more than specific insight

A dire killing thrust
To satisfy the lust
When beaten to their death
Lingering aftermath

7. Downbeat Clique

For independance we alone define
Open-ended, not monopolised, it's just as it is.

Does not need overstatement
Don't broadcast it from the rooftops
It's we alone that convene

But radical actor there you are
The radical statesman picking holes
But radical actor there you are
The radical stateman's checklist of faults

But radical actor there you are
In radical terms this target's soft
But radical actor there you are
In radical terms it's power to your lost soul

But radical actor there you are
The radical heights of alienating
To be a cut above – or below.

Infighting starts to establish
A clearly marked distance because image is at stake

Mindlessly stifling, downbeat clique
Down-at-heel, downbeat clique

Infighting starts to establish
A clearly marked distance because image is at stake

Pitifully sniping, downbeat clique
Re-branded morality, downbeat clique.

Exactly what are YOU achieving?

The faithful patron of one conclusion
With reflection, effects are null and void,
It's just as it is

But radical actor there you are
The radical statesman picking holes
But radical actor there you are
In radical terms it's power to your lost soul.

But radical actor there you are,
The radical slip into social structure,
And your threatening alliance with the norm.

8. Fallacy Dominion

Redress effects,
Of past and current discriminations,
Intention to promote access to education
Equality, employment, public institutions
Meekly lamenting racial group victimisation

Intent to destroy traditionalist opinion
In whole or in part – this fallacy dominion
Intent to destroy by reverse definition
Intent to destroy

Long, arcane sliding scale on the population
Rubbishing preferential treatment accusations
An accomplishment to live and learn
In my opinion.

Intent to destroy traditionalist opinion
In whole or in part – this fallacy dominion
Intent to destroy by reverse definition
Intent to destroy

Ingrained affirmative action
Dismays conservative factions

Ingrained affirmative action
Prevention is better than a cure
However obvious or obscure
Prevention is better than a cure
However obvious or obscure.

Quick degradation
At the root and inciting violence
Encouraged prejudice towards ethnic appearance
Oppose the hierarchical machine –
Oppose dominance!

Protest old punishments, free from harassment
Fresh ideology breaks model society
Burning resentment, departing conformity
Inflicted confinement, created anxiety

Ingrained affirmative action
Prevention is better than a cure
However obvious or obscure
Prevention is better than a cure
However obvious or obscure.
Prevention is better than a cure
However obvious or obscure.

9. Passive Tense

Overbearing drive to break loose,
But not to inflict any wounding
Back-breaking social codes
I'm hurttling toward apoplexy

"Conduct inappropriate!"
Cry misappropriating know-alls
Conduct inappropriate!

Institutional oafs break loose
Care to neutralise us human germs
Guidelines they so staunchly espouse
Adjustable once they are exposed

"Lifestyles disproportionate!"
Cry misappropriating know-alls
Lifestyles disproportionate!

Verbal diarrhoea
Virtuous fawning makes my flesh crawl
Are you some God, King and Sage?

Superfluous slurs
Resent, interject, intercept and molest
Superfluous slurs
Entrap, double back
They collapse and entrance
Superfluous slurs.

10. Laurency Of The Heart

Now that the time has passed,
We look back in angst at the past
Now that the dust has cleared,
The ugly head of fear has reared

Was there ever a guiding truth –
A light to silence the cries?
Suspicion is building a case to coutner-attack the lies

Now that time has moved on,
Can we look to the future with hope?
Now that the dawn has returned,
Forget not the sense of pain
Is the world still a masquerade – a deja vu of trauma?
Hidden plans and corrupt ideals
Molest the true spirit to live

We cannot fight what we cannot see
Larceny of the heart
We can't take back
What we didn't know was taken
Larceny of the heart

Now that the time has passed,
We look back in angst at the past
Now that the dust has cleared,
The ugly head of fear has reared
Now that time has moved on,
Can we look to the future with hope?
Now that the dawn has returned,
Forget not the sense of pain

We cannot fight what we cannot see
Larceny of the heart, we can't take back
What we didn't know was taken
Larceny of the heart

Stripped to the nerve we obey
A shadow empire lies in wait
Stripped to the nerve we obey
The pounding pulse of deceit

We cannot fight what we cannot see
Larceny of the heart
We can't take back
What we didn't know was taken
Larceny of the heart

11. Procrastination Of The Empty Vessel

Procrastination on the empty vessel
Roll over and over to take a breather
Is this dereliction of duty
To no throw a giant stick in the works?
To labour so rigidly,
Fleeing safe havens of natural beauty

Procrastination on the empty vessel
Toil to the bone so the machines roll on
Is this vague assumption
That a call to a halt will signal our untimely end?
To labour so rigidly, all the safe havens of natural
Beauty just merge into form
Not to be seen, tasted, touched or felt

We don't believe that we have the nerve
We can believe that refusal won't hurt
We don't believe much in... ourselves

Nil retribution on the empty vessel
Bracing ourselves as we smashed our routine
This feels like liberation

Or a call to a halt that signalled
Our untimely end
To have laboured so rigidly,
Barred frin safe havens of natural beauty.

We don't believe that we have the nerve
We can believe that refusal won't hurt
We don't believe much in... ourselves

12. Feeling Redundant

The past drags behind us like a dead weight
Prone for the large part, yet piling on the guilt
Bullying, rebuking, lest we re-imagine

Because by moving in the here and the now,
It has become ingrained as given
Directionless, transparent, brittle beings that we are

But consider this:
Those who can't escape the past
Are condemned to repeat it.

They place us in a losing battle
But will we die for any flag? I don't think so.
Quietly unwilling, escorted...
There is little of our choosing.

Disorientated by the noise of custom
It dissipates the present and the future unbalanced,
Excluded for envisioning a new space.

Those who can't escape the past
Are condemned to repeat it

The past gives us oversight
But we have nothing if it is rehashed
Are we so stupefied
That we've run out of steam?

The past can keep us blissfully ignorant
Away from a plunge
Into the (exhilarating) virgin unknown
Are we so fucking drained, that we've run out of steam?
Are we so stupefied, that we've run out of steam?

The past drags behind us like a dead weight
It has become ingrained as given
Directionless, transparent,
Brittle beings that we are
They place us in a losing battle
It dissipates the present and the future
Directionless, transparent,
Brittle beings that we are

But consider this:
Those who can't escape the past
Are condemned to repeat it.

13. A No-Sided Argument

Abject...Engulfed...

Assail the heathen you!
Cheer the martyr home
Never drop your guard

Smear campaign against clarity
A no-sided argument
Bite that tongue!

Slum in a turgid rut
Self-flagellate to assure
Pleasures trampled flat

Obligation to those pious myths
A no-sided argument

You seem a brow-beaten husk –
Sheltered from salacious 'everything'
You've reached saturation point –
Every violating human touch
Sets bombs off inside your brain

With turmoil as an epitaph
A no-sided argument

14. De-Evolution Ad Nauseum

Bent double and the vibrancy has gone
Termors upon shutdown of my auto-function

They sold it well:
Contentment with no effort

Domesticated drone lets slip its motor skills
Nothing seems to click
Without my auto-function

They sold it well: Disempowerment
On demand, play dead, play dead, play dead

No verve and no drive, as I passed it all on
Trails of life relieved via my auto-function

They sold it well:
Appeasement and smooth transferral

Do I need to speak? Or emote?
And problem-solve? Or dream anymore?
Have I shrunk in stature or plummeted
Into deep hibernation?

On demand,
Play dead,
Play dead,
Play dead