1. SEWN FORTH OF HYDRA TEETH

The charcoal curtain lifts to reveal the mountain peak
Where a waxing moon shines upon a nocturnal episode
A huddled figure crouched in the dim dust rock and dirt
Planting something deep within earth – and now what will it birth?

Sewn forth of hydra teeth
Summoned through ancient speak
Sewn forth of hydra teeth
A vengeance now that shall be reaped

Foetal figures stir and spew from fresh fissure
Skeletal wolves emerging from a viscera of rubble
Unfolding, outstretching, reptilian progenies, a lupine legion
Behest to the command of he who conjured on this fell season
With the wave of a crooked finger
An exhumed bestial battalion ordered to march

On an unassuming world
Let’s hope man will rise to the challenge


2. HUMAN BULLDOZER

A hypertrophic human weapon, bound by no man, no master
To no politic or cause, just fury and the cauldron of conflict
Flesh – a keloid constellation, mind – a strobing red and black
Unleashed into battle and now there’s no turning back
A product now of grief and the ultimate consuming toll
What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger? Perhaps at the cost of your soul

Vague memories of an innocence, of a self who once hid
So many didn’t make it, he asks himself, ‘am I really so strong just because I outlived?’
In order to survive
He had to become
More machine than man
The bulldozer
Yet he remains carrying a wound that doesn’t heal
Only noticed in brief flashing whenever forced to feel
Through the carrion and chaos of each false morning
He persists in ignoring that mental gnawing

Is he so far gone? In an age where redemption is met with nothing but spite and mockery


3. THE SPITFIRE PHANTOM

A plane shot down before it could even sight its foe
Hurtling into chasmic purgatory suffering a single fatal blow
One war ends and soon another begins
Through an amorphous black cloud, a speeding shape emerges
Propelling into the crimson thick of fiery blitz, it throttles and surges
The skies above Britain now an apocalyptic claim
Horizon of bullets and flame interrupted by a phantasmic plane
The fallen pilot from the RAF two decades prior
Has returned again to save his countrymen in a situation dire
A Sopwith Camel morphs to Spitfire and the spectral bullets fly
Victory ensues and for another wartime night Britain will survive
Our ghost protagonist can finally ascend to a peace beyond battle


4. A BANSHEE'S LAUGHTER IN THE DARK

Ripped from slumber, sheets strewn and soaked with sweat
Groans of the house louder tonight, suffocating stench of death
Eyes adjust to the dark, casting off the shroud of sleep
A shadow in the corner of the room, extending and starting to creep
Frozen, unsure if trapped between dream and reality
Something edges closer, cracking, rattling, how can this be?
Porcelain claws clutch at my bed, now I see her face
Bruised blue, cruel and sunken, hair an oily nest of snakes
She throws her head back, howling at her meal
I’m petrified prey
A victim to a banshee’s laughter in the dark
Tracing the nape of my neck with a nail, about to bite
As suddenly the cock crows, signalling dawn’s first light
The sun casts her fell flesh into a judgement of flame
A fiery shrieking encounter that nearly left me insane


5. THE MOUNTAIN OF PAST LIVES

Climbing in the darkness, a lesson given
Lifting higher, can’t glance backward
Interior voice defeatist, ignore its speech
So close now to that glowing peak
Ascending the mountain
Completing my task
Ascending the mountain
Carving my mark
Reach the summit within an inch of death
Rewarded by a glimpse beyond the edge
The amber burst of dawn rises to light
A pile of bones descending out of sight
Ascending the mountain
Overcoming self
Ascending the mountain
The mountain of past lives
To the meridian where all shadows eclipse
To a zenith beyond the carnage of self
Ascend the mountain of past lives
Each corpse a nest of dream, delusion, and desire
Flesh and bone of maturity redeemed in fire
Through ember witness a new and final bloom
Toward fulfilment, a higher-self cast from Phoenician womb


6. SILVER MOON GAUNTLET

(Instrumental)


7. A NIMBUS OOZING NEON GREEN

The storm howled and raged, and the city suffered
Glass shattered, roofs collapsed, gutters flooded
Trees uprooted and strewn, street lights bent
After the initial chaos remained a foulest stench

A nimbus oozing neon green
A choking toxic fever dream
A nimbus oozing neon green
A leaking violent sight obscene

We soon realized something was not quite right
As a cloud persisted covering each day’s light
Throbbing and pulsating like something alive
A malevolent mass staring to wheeze and writhe

A nimbus oozing neon green

The shape morphs slowly into a laughing face
Cackling and looming over our human race
A new rain begins to fall, now a searing acid spray
An alien presence consuming our species like we’re its prey

But where did it come from?

An insatiable force collared for millennia finally unleashed
How will we fight when our laws of nature have been breached

We will find a way
We will survive


8. WIELDING A SWORD OF FLAME

The hand grasps the hilt of the broken weapon, preserved in time
Fingers curl around this artefact, instinctually I know it’s mine
A molten force surges, exploding through my veins
Coursing from arm to handle, a sword of flame
The heirloom called to me and now it has chosen to be
A beacon for all to see, a fiery standard at the line of victory
Defending our stronghold from a nameless evil of smoke and ash
With this blade I strike them down, and triumph over this clash
Wielding a sword of flame
Arm of birthright, carried in fight
Wielding a sword of flame
An eternal light in the age of night


9. DAGGER HEWN FROM A WALRUS TUSK

And here is an origin narrative, the seeds of a great saga
Of a warrior who fought pure evil, proving hope will preserve further
This brutal journey takes us far beyond our lands
Adventure beyond that usually granted to man
Breaking icy waves in our ship, we travel north
Oblivious to the drama about to set forth
Whale hunting, blood on sleet, Arctic winds howl
One figure amongst us exuding a malice most foul
Prodding with spear, then stabbing with a blade most unique
A danger aboard worse than anything we should seek
Bloodlust ignited now, the man hunts our crew one by one
All slayed by his trophy knife, until the last, the captain’s son
The boy wrestles the weapon free from the killer’s calloused grasp
A duel more fiery than any spectator could ever ask
Two figures tangle, two shadows eclipse
As the boy lifts the cruel blade tip
And he thrusts his dagger hewn from a walrus tusk
For he must escape this vessel now at impending dusk
And he thrusts his dagger hewn from a walrus tusk
For he must escape into black water, a victim, a husk
Surviving for another life
Though forever carrying scars from that knife


10. ARMOURED PEGASUS IN FLIGHT

The celestial stable unlatched, equestrian herald set forth
Olympian flame ignited to the tide of warring men
The gilded comet carves clouds, sundering a purple dawn
A burst of light – a glittering asterisk descending into battle
Wings arched backward, braced, and spearing downward
At the sight all men, regardless of bravery, become cowards
The beast swoops and gallops
An unstoppable divine force
Like the froth of a cresting tidal wave
Subsuming all enemies beyond its way
The conquered are strewn into the air
Or trampled beneath unyielding hooves
Armour shimmering in the morning light
All eyes incredulous to this mythic sight
From the victorious quagmire of mud and gore
The armoured Pegasus takes flight once more
Returning to a pasture far beyond the skies
The steed exits with a fierce thunderous cry


11. THE SUN WEEPING MOLTEN TEARS

Times have changed and the balance has skewed
What was once optimism has slowly been strangled and turned to a deep sorrow
The eternal cosmic face distorts with a rippling, coursing, fire
Our sentient guardian grown mournful and melancholic
Toward a world it once encouraged and helped prosper
Toward mankind who since origins it would nurture and foster
Each tear falls, meteoric comets blindly destroy and destruct
A sanguine sky vomiting, waves of debris crash and splash
The sun weeping molten tears
Land and sea engulfed in a mournful downpour of fiery nova
As the sun continues weeping, a celestial cry heard the world over
A great reset birthed from tragedy, what will stir within ashes cast
As the line of men fails, falling into forgotten past
The sun weeping molten tears
Ultimate realization of our fears


12. WITH HORNS SHARPER THAN FANGS

(Instrumental)