1. CUPISCENTIA PARIT PECCATUM

(Instrumental)


2. BRING FORTH DEATH

There stood a dragon whose smile like glistening towers gleamed
Solar in its glare and hellish in its heat
Once I’d slain her for my glory, and so my pride obtained
I planted in most fertile fields each of her razor teeth

Was my conquest not complete?
Was her death not enough for me?
Why could the blood upon my jagged sword
Never quench my immortal lust?

For I would raise an army fierce
In platemail cased and trained to pierce
And so stretch out my hand for more
To stand in judgement, crowned by war

As the angels who forsook their principality
So the fleeting spoils of desired fulfilled
Would turn to everlasting chains

Through the carnage of my ascension
Striving as all men in futility
Why can’t the blood of your saints spilled at my hands
Fill up the depths of your immortal love?

Their tears as a sapphire spring
Their split veins yielding forth rubies to you
All the nights suffered long awakened in death
Await the trampling balm of your sapid plagues

To those hooves would I stand enemy
Crushing down all who withstood
The stain on his ankle from the head of my liege
If the darker third of heaven could not but bruise his heel
How will I in human strength claim the battlefield?

Behold how he treads the winepress of his wrath
In his irradiate gaze my courage drips as wax
Can you melt down my heart of stone
That leads me blind to the abyss?

By the scale in your hand are many weighed
And many there are found wanting still
Written in what was, what is, and what shall come to pass
Is there redemption left for me?

Why would you show me the writing on my grave
If I were forever past all hope?

Behold how sharp the edges of his tongue
Dividing soul from spirit, inhaled breath from lung
Can you sever the chains I forged?
The weight of greed drags me to hell

Make my tears a sapphire spring
My split veins yielding forth rubies to you
Though my nights suffered long awaken in death
I’ll want the trampling balm of your sapid plagues


3. I AM ANNIHILATION

The night has closed around me
And hymns perverse and purposeless haunt the ears that guide my steps
For in this lightless valley, my eyes are too deceived
Even nature’s glory, by chaos and cacophony
Is shrouded in the smoke of altars heaped with stillborn carcasses

Are Molech’s nostrils never filled?
Is Hades’ bloodlust never thrilled?
Are creatures made to worship flesh
And sacrifice their souls to Death?

The mind of man slaves to his feeble heart
Deception his sculptor, destruction his art
Devolution named progress by the fallen and depraved
To crown villainy with power and so justice evade

This midwife’s hand outstretched for Gaia’s last travail
As she brings forth her finalborn in blood and wrath and misery
I long to see her afterbirth, her turmoils all fulfilled
But weep amidst the agony – the blood of souls forever spilled

How many thousand times has the almighty stayed your hand
Since the dragon mustered all the darkened stars
To assault the throne of God, to poison the Wellspring of Life
Turn all its grace to curses and quench its very source?

Oh, Angel of Annihilation, thy beauty veiled
Until revilers and deceivers kneel to kiss the edge of your sword

Oh, still your soul and calm your every fear
When morning hides its face, I will be near
Rest your heart, I know this night is so dark
When daylight is denied, I will be close at hand


4. THE DAWNING NIGHT

Before the storm, before the day of the last death
Apollyon assembled his lords to stand against you
For all their wisdom, do they not know?
Their kingdoms are torn, shorn for the slaughter

Under whose reign for centuries past, the upright have obtained
For virtue, violence, for mercy, scorn
Their cry goes up: how long?

How long will you wait to avenge us?
Our blood cries from the ground

Before you strike, before you darken the sky
Paint your blood on my door to abate the angels of death
For the dawning night will dub saddle bright
When the Prince of Light removes his lampstand

From those who in his name corrupted and enslaved the weak
Exchanging for virtue, violence for mercy, scorn
To them he will say, I have never known your names

Our blood cries out, how long?
Until you resheath your sword in your foe’s spinal cord
Rip the flesh from the bone, lift the truth from the lies
Until your archers draw and your cataphracts charge
And your vengeance is revealed before your enemies’ eyes


5. ATHANASIA

From where have you come
Bearing the dust of earthly lamentation
From wandering to and fro in the tears
Of a thousand forgotten generations?

Sentenced to walk amongst us
Hunted for your graces rare
But those who’d taste your blessing
Must in all your suffering share

Are dynasties sooner snuffed out
Are chords of iron sooner frayed
Than smoldering candles, thorny stems
Laid where hearts of flesh decay

One day would you weep for me
As I have mourned your exile here?

Oh, Athanasia, formless, fair
Your deathlessness a curse
Your aeons soaked in sorrow
In misery immersed

For all whom you have cherished
Each one that you held dear
Has perished – carried downward
By the flood of passing years

In inquisition immolate
Your mettle ever tried
And through the ashen shroud of age
Your faith is glorified
Come ghost of all immortal love
Your heart the slaughter’s lamb
Bring beauty to the dying
Bear mercy for the dammed

As I have mourned your exile here
So would you weep for me
Ghost of all immortal love?


6. EMPIRES TO SERVITUDE

For the rain, the abundance, the fruit of earth in plenty
To Molech the tyrant all Cainan brings their seed
Wherefore upon his outstretched hands
Do they pass their firstborn sons and daughters to the fire of his greed

A dissonant band of flutes and tamborines crowds around his brazen shrine
Masking the sacrificial shrieks of infants offered up
By parents who, if they heard the child’s agony
Might pluck them hence, deprive the fire god, and so induce his rage

But does the smoldering of flesh and crackling bone
Coax him to show forth his grace
Or does the number of mouths he silences
Lessen the demand for bread

From Carthage to Sidon his topeths blacken thus
To make fertile lands and strengthen hands alike in war and peace
But as Israel’s hosts approach their gates how many mighty sons go forth?
What hero stands to slake the blade and blunt the fall of Yahweh’s wrath?

Oh champion who never stood
Has all our hope been slain with you?

Despise the honor of maternity, upon fatherhood a curse
Unto hedon the liar bring all thy days of youth
For pride of life and lust of flesh pursuit of pleasure sweet yet
Than tender selfless toil, yes, than the breath of life given anew

What more can the vacuum devour?
To what less can these crushing tongues reduce?
Mothers to maidens, the fruitful to barren
Empires to servitude

From nineteen-hundred and seventy-three, their blood flows unassuaged
Drained from cradles, wombs, and mothers arms to fill the land of the dead
I watch as parents file forth to give them up for lost
Filling the ranks and nameless rosters of seven holocausts

Has all our hope been slain with you?
Oh champion who never stood


7. ASYSTOLE: A PORTRAIT

Echoes the sound that splattered the walls
As I carve on the keys a message in code
If you’re reading this then it’s probably too late
Here I lie, entrapped and entombed

Viciously waving a knot are the sounds
Of E, B flat, G, C sharp and A
I sweat like my pen dripping onto the page
Of an epilogue written in dashes and line

What are the costs of cutting my loss
Told by the ongoing beat of my heart?
What if this night ever comes to an end
And I’m crushed by it, cursed forever to breathe?

Like pulsating waves, passing tones rise and fall
Under the Darkness own bassline decays
Murderous melodies fill my ears
The sounds that I wish only someone would hear

In futility born to a futile life
My apex of meaning achieved in flatline
Never before has a song been song that forever sings on
And so I like to die

What is the reason for fighting against
The invincible forces that silence a heart?
What of the night that shadows the day
Wrought by sorrow, death and decay?

You’re holding the paddles over my chest
You’re draining the nightshade into my veins
My pupils affixed, my skin cold and pale
But you pound on my sternum and breathe into me

On the wings of angels by body is bourne
On the tide of a siren you ride through the storm
What life flows in you can defy death in me
And regenerate that which had lost all hope


8. VEINS BLED AMISS

Shut out the darkness that feeds on sour soul
Shed all the scales of sorrow fixed to your flesh
Are despair and frustration your comfort and defense?
Your enemy prevails while you’re betrayed from within

Adversaries unnumbered assail
Even the walls close in against you
But will you forge yourself a cage
While the battle rages nearer?

How many veins have bled amiss
When the dark tempts me to forget the dawn is so near

Cast down the tyrant whom you have enthroned
Cleanse the temple of your mind
Self-pity, complacence and apathy open the gates
To welcome the conquest of failure

Look at the broken, look on the weak
How many fall with none to raise them?
Why would you choose the bonds of a slave
When you can bear the wounds of a savior?

How many veins have bled for you
Don’t tempt the dark, while the dawn is so near


9. AS THE MORNINGSTARS BURN

Sculpted here a statue fair, as by Phidias, in stone
And likened so to human form- its skin, its flesh, its bone
Left not unhewn: its poignant flaws nor the filth seeped from its pores
Flattered not but chiseled true, each of its festering cankerous sores

For the perfection sewn in what I portray
For pride therein to sin has gone astray

From stardust and purest earth was fashioned this frail frame
And by the breath that gave all life this treacherous soul took form
Abominate and apostate, all the heights of our achievements pale
To the depths of death which we have dug
The quest of glory we have failed

Does the hosts of heaven long to cut short the age of man?
To rectify our wrongs, io wipe out our iniquity?

Pushed back, oppressed on every side as by Hunnic bows harassed
The haggard force of virtue vanes as on its shrinking border masses
Evil clothed in robes of light and armed by those they overthrew
The hearts of man once tuned to sing, to tend, to care and cultivate

Their plowshares melted down
Reforged as swords to force their will

Occultic hymns will sing renown of that rotting carcass – truth
When fades its pyre’s anguished flame of Death’s eternal youth
The dead language of chastened love and the blackened art of light
Will be rehearsed in secret lairs by outlaw and alchemist alike

Are the inky pages of our acts
Dry enough to fuel the spark of good, the glory of mankind
Or will we yield to far more fervent flames
As the dawning night draws near, as the morning stars burn

Do the morning stars burn as urine drains from your altar
Or do the Cherubim beg you for the world to destroy us?


10. BEAST AMONG ANGELS

Break me apart and incinerate my wreckage
Blind me to all that I could ever see

For in sweetest temptations and carnal delights
I am lost to the beauty of sacrifice
Drunk on a chalice of sawdust and sand
While my soul dies thirsting for waters of life

Whose voice hailed as god’s is devoured by worms?
Whose harp chosen first is swallowed by earth?

I, creature of dust, my decades vaporhood
My greatness the half of my evil heart
Obtained in your pain, perfection

A serpent took Eden from its gardener
Hades the dead god took Persephone
Live as a slave or be slain a martyr
What can the treacherer take from me?

For the life I never led and the death I never knew
For the blood I never shed, Son of David bleed
And as your life drains out, hold my heart close to yours
And when you enter glory again, remember me

Breathe into my clay and rebuild my wreckage
Open my eyes to all that I could be

Though I were dethroner to the vilest of kings
Were orphans transformed to princes at my hand
Though I were the champion over every Leviathan
Still but a thief justly hung on a cross

Prostrate and penitent, no fortitudes nor form
I wandered to earth’s shore and knelt down in its foam
Here I searched for beauty and her elder sister grace
Chased by this world worst wars and saddest waste

Prostitute its prophecies, my faith forlorn and false
Eroded, unrepentant, obtained its rightful place
In hell’s hated harem where beauty there and grace
Lay defaced by the ways of this world, its wars and waste

I, creature of death, a beast among angels
My order a chaos before your design
Create with my pain, perfection


11. STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN (LED ZEPPELIN COVER)

There's a lady who's sure all that glitters is gold
And she's buying a stairway to heaven
When she gets there she knows, if the stores are all closed
With a word she can get what she came for
And she's buying a stairway to heaven

There's a sign on the wall but she wants to be sure
Cause you know sometimes words have two meanings
In a tree by the brook, there's a songbird who sings
Sometimes all of our thoughts are misgiven

There's a feeling I get when I look to the west
And my spirit is crying for leaving
In my thoughts I have seen rings of smoke through the trees
And the voices of those who stand looking

And it's whispered that soon, if we all call the tune
Then the piper will lead us to reason
And a new day will dawn for those who stand long
And the forests will echo with laughter

If there's a bustle in your hedgerow, don't be alarmed now
It's just a spring clean for the May queen
Yes, there are two paths you can go by, but in the long run
There's still time to change the road you're on
And it makes me wonder

Your head is humming and it won't go, in case you don't know
The piper's calling you to join him
Dear lady, can you hear the wind blow, and did you know
Your stairway lies on the whispering wind?

And as we wind on down the road
Our shadows taller than our soul
There walks a lady we all know
Who shines white light and wants to show
How everything still turns to gold
And if you listen very hard
The tune will come to you at last
When all are one and one is all
To be a rock and not to roll

And she's buying a stairway to heaven