1. AVERNAL GATE

Burn the veil of heresy
Before it takes another life
Where hope dies with every dream
Ashes raining from the skies

I breathe them in to clear my head
But I choke upon the flame
A dying light to illuminate
Before I reach the end

These faded lives are all we have
To find our way through shadowed lands
We stumblе on with broken backs
Holding hearts in calloused hands

A storm of liеs within my head
As the waves keep crashing down
The turbid water won't recede
And I fear that I will drown

No stars above, the creeping dark
Smothers all the lights below
This face that haunts me is my own
Upon his pallid throne

These faded lives are all we have
To find our way through shadowed lands
We stumble on with broken backs
Shielding hearts from callous hands
I cast aside the shroud
To reveal what's underneath
The ground beneath is churning

With unblind eyes, I see oblivion beyond the gate
Beneath the tide of cinders, I accept this is my fate


2. HOUSE OF CADMUS

Bloodline fallacies
Wreathe the soul that I call who I am
Lead on while ravens watch
Hungrily eyeing their prey
In a forest drenched in haze
Endlessly barring my way

Threads become stained
Weaving thoughts into blades
That cry for release in the night
A protector’s song
By the bard of barbs
Damning each breath that we take
The curse in my veins

This is the spectre that crawls through my dreams
Blasphemy born in my marrow
A lineage broken and torn at the seams
Now stripped down and chained
I burn the remains

Threads become stained
Weaving thoughts into blades
That cry for release in the night
They’re a jailor’s song
Of abuse in its arms
And fears that I’m bound to this fate
The curse in my veins

I repent

I see the machinations of torment glowing beneath the moon
With mouths of broken glass they rend my flesh and herald my doom

Cleave the body from my former
Render the past incomplete
I would end this to disown it
Leave it bleeding by the sea


3. LIVING PYRE

There’s nothing left to give
Nothing to rake through coals
That I can use to keep the flame alive inside
Outside the storm rages
Injustice, bold and ageless
While I’m alone in the cold
I’m drowning in a mind that’s always caving in
The rivers rise and surround me
My body is a frame that’s weighed down by its sins
An anchor cold and leaden
We’re burning in the firelight—a living pyre

I can’t just cast aside
The burden in my heart
With no relief in sight
I’m being torn apart
We are mеrely vessels
Torn from thе empty bliss of night
Unhallowed by design
Into the blinding light of life
Wrought in the image of god
We have to learn to find a way
To transcend far beyond
The tomb from which we came to be
Where we’re interred forever
I’m drowning in a mind that’s always caving in
The rivers rise and surround me
My body is a frame that’s weighed down by its sins
An anchor cold and leaden


4. SHROUD OF LETHE

Broken lights hide the past I push away
Still, I lie in the wreckage, fragments tearing my skin
Into the scars that I betray
It betrays us all

Why should I atone and wash away the pain?
I can't trust the memories leading me astray
Still, I hold on to what I know are lies
Written in stone

Draped in shame, wandering back through my life
Where I died, we were unmade
'Til I find a light
Golden fire that gleams through the haze
Innocence lost that I reclaim

How can I atonе and wash away the pain?
I can't trust the memoriеs leading me astray
Still, I hold on to what I know are lies
Written in stone

Digging in the snow
And my hands are frostbitten and raw
No longer cold
Locked in a crystalline tomb of memory
Agony and verity
When will it come for me?
Take this token of sincere apology
Words unspoken so I sing their melody
The loss became a song of life


5. OBSIDIAN CROWN

Reflecting light from a blazer in the dark
In times where I've turned my eyes away again

Shielded from the spark
In our dim and empty rooms
But the fire works its way in
Immolate all but one
Written with a knife
In our dim and empty rooms
On these cracked and fading pages
Hidden now from the sun

Silently the dream's consuming me
Fighting back what I've become
I'm crying out, but I have been betrayed
In silence, no one hears thе sound
By failure, I'm bound

Forged evеry night in my hope to keep the dogs at bay
These fumes intoxicate my brain
Hallucinations taking me
This poison's sweet, deceiving plea
I'm cast in clay and locked away

Shielded from the spark
In our dim and empty rooms
But the fire works its way in
Immolate all but one
Written with a knife
In our dim and empty rooms
On these cracked and fading pages
Hidden now from the sun
I dreamt of silence
If every muscle atrophies
Freedom from the rotting heart within
What will remain inside of me

This world was made for suffering
Once I dreamt, but now I'm lost
A curse fit for a king
In a haze, my shelter


6. THE ASTRAL ROAD

Down on the barren wasteland
In times where many men have fallen
I'm picking up the pieces
Chasing shadows in a pale gray dawn

Ashes fall
Hiding secrets like before
Snowlike but too imperfect
Leaving countless stains upon the shores

I'm praying for the rain
To take it all away

There's nothing waiting for us now
I'm broken but unashamed
Cracks in the walls ease the night for us all
But we wait and hide from the pain

This world is more than we can take on all alonе
Convinced we're glory bound
Liеs twist and skew our purpose
I leave them bleeding on the floor
Unpledged to any service

Insurrection, cut away the cords
Deny the fates
That is dancing in the night
We're blind, our eyes unseeing
Diving deeper, hoping to ignite
I'm praying for the rain
To take it all away

Nowhere to be found
This dry, dying ground
Always was our grave

There's nothing waiting for us now
I'm broken but unashamed
Cracks in the walls ease the night for us all
But we wait and hide from the pain

If I could throw the guilt aside
I'd let myself be washed away
From the chains of pride
Into the love that I feel today
Where my will to live is not a lie
When the darkness comes