Which of the parties involved in the pursuit of a fool is the true idiot? Is it the deaf, dumb and blind voyeur rubbing over protective clothes, loitering by an open window? (If what you see excites you so, then just imagine what you didn't know.) It's the thrill of the eavesdrop that titillates that sweet spot that in you no one else has filled, or ever will... You live vicarious through my every word, you quiver that my voice be heard in whispers that will lull you to dream the wildest machinations of your infantile imagination.
I'm going to keep things strictly business for this chime-in. I am currently very distracted with living a life of indulging my unbridled animal lust as if everyday was Saturnalia and so I don't want to get away from all the fun for too long. (The best things come to those who wait I suppose.) I'm thinking of legally changing my last name to Caligula. I actually really like the way it rings with my first name. (Samantha, get my lawyer in here sometime this week please.) Now, my writing has never leaned towards the interpretive, but lust can be a lot of things besides what the most basic reader would immediately assume. This is to say, don't judge the cover by the content of this book's pages. Sure, I will always lurk at the four corners where mischief debuts itself under the starry night, but shenanigans in my case is a lot of things besides the eloquently implied, interpret as thou wilt though, but know I never lie.
However, maintaining my writing habits is very important to me and the same goes for maintaining this blog updated, so here we go with the first post of the New Year. I am several months away from the last check-in, which was my Fuck New Year 2023 Extravaganza, so props unto myself for being reasonably consistent. That being said, there possibly may only be one more post for this year and this will likely be my traditional New Years Eve rant post. There's a reason for this...
The second, and I'm still pushing for this, is after having taken this blog's Brooklyn, New York correspondent Killer Kim Shell into the fold. Kim is as hilarious as she is (still in adulthood) 'Punk-and-pissed'; but more importantly our conversational chemistry would be the stuff of Punk-cast legend. Our often day-long texting threads are nugget filled. Unfortunately, I have not been able to make that stubborn mule budge. She's a bit too much like her Droog, Lord and Master...
Why not just do it myself? Simple... I don't start one on my own because I am a techno-ignoramus. I need someone to work the boards and produce so that I can just riff and extemporaneously and make gold out of trash- like an alchemist. I also have a feeling that listening to my twerp-ish voice played back would seriously speed up the onset of my impending male erectile dysfunction. I have been diving into a couple of podcasts here and there and some of them have driven me away within a minute from some of the peculiar voices that I have come across. Although, it might be kind of funny to run my voice through one of those effects that they use when interviewing Mob informants. LOL. Really, the only thing stopping me from even making an attempt is my total ignorance of technology. My most recent shrink was right, I was "Born Too Late"...
Mean Season -Go To Hell (Indecision Records)
It is starting to feel like a bit of a futile pursuit, this blog. Still, I'll press on. After all, I mean, what the fuck else do I have but time? Where else will I archive all of my debauched adventures, or wax philosophical about life, love, the lack of, and death? Where else will I pontificate on music in my obnoxious, know-it-all kind of way? So, with no further delay, let us go right into the meat of this shit sandwich. I want to start this check-in with a new feature. It's called:
"Do You Really Want To Know What I'm Fucking Fed Up With?!"
"Do You Really Want To Know What I'm Fucking Fed Up With?!" I am really sick and fucking tired of people holding Loveless by My Bloody Valentine in such high regard!!! Stop it!!! It's a ginormous piece of shit!!! The recording is absolutely dismal!!! This is supposed to be a "Shoegaze Classic"??? Ni Pinga!!! This shit sucks balls. Shoegaze should be dreamy and saturating. This thing sounds like a dream alright... you know, those dreams you get right before you wake up with bloody, oozing diarreah... And what the fuck is SHOEGAZE anyways??? That's one of the stupidest names for a niche genre ever. I got a shoe for you to gaze at... Gaze at my size 10 as I administer such a kick in the ass to you that you shall die of hunger in mid-flight!!! (Think about that for a minute). If you're a little bit dense, I'll break it down to you, the implication of that previous sentence is that the sheer force of that kick in the ass would propel someone so far into the air that the cause of death would be starvation, because they would never make it back down to terra firma. Tremenda Fucking Mierda!!! It sounds like you are listening to the record while sitting in the next room, through aluminum siding, and the record is warped. I absolutely hate it... Do you want a real "Shoegaze Classic" to zone out too? Then try Spooky by Lush! That thing rules, plus, Miki Berenyi and Emma Thompson were a pair of cutie-pies in their day, (Miki can still get it, though) but this, this is like fire ants in my ears... Feh! Fuck Loveless, it's garbage!
(Now, to be fair, they have some EPs that I own that are decent, some even good, but as for Loveless, you all need to cut it out and pull a 'Leo Gonzalez', which means to abruptly jump off of a moving bandwagon and hopefully the impact with the pavement will help your brain to reboot so that you can see this record for what it's worth... which is ugats!!!)
Now that I've got that off of my chest, and piggy-backing on to the subject of music, let us jump into some music reviews...
Without a doubt, Mean Season's Grace LP ranks in my personal top 10 favorite 90s Hardcore records...
...ever...
In the early days of Very Distribution (Rest In Pussy, John), Grace was probably in my second "big order" from the legendary Philly distributor of all things Hardcore. I'd like to think that in part, people like myself or my old record collecting mate Tom Rankine (if to name one) kept food in John's mouth and a roof over his head, being that he had a money order from us every two weeks for $100 or better, just depleting his vinyl and T-shirt inventory. I've digressed... and it will happen more and more as we move forward... this is after all MISANTHROPAGANDA's tribute to the gin-soaked, self-important run-on sentence.
In 1994, when Mean Season released their first and final LP, the landscape of Hardcore was beginning to shift due to the impact that 'metallic Hardcore' bands like Integrity but more importantly Unbroken, with whom Mean Season shared personnel, whose take on Hardcore was diverging a bit from sportswear and positivity and more towards all black, pompadours and lead singers that commit suicide at the height of their band's powers. There were a fuck-load of bands that came out after Unbroken's Life.Love.Regret. (a bona fide, iconic 90s Straight Edge must-have) Overcast's Expectational Dilution and of course Grace by Mean Season. Still, despite the assembly line emergence of dozens (dozens then, hundreds if not thousands now) imitators there is just something about Mean Season's first album that no one has ever been able to draw from or even recreate in a manner worth mentioning. The passion of Hardcore, cross-pollinated with the evil of Slayer, and infected with a crestfallen ardor -this is how best I can describe Mean Season.
To think that after thirty years they have returned with a new release made me nervous at first. After all, I have not waivered from my love for their early work (even the Bleed To Me 7" which was widely disparaged), and this is despite having come to the realization that the band does not translate well live (due to Aaron Kelly's lack of vocal consistency and his awkward stage presence). Their set at REEL AND RESTLESS FEST here in Miami was a huuuuuuuge disappointment to myself, a die-hard fan. It was a huge relief, and a big gooey Ear-gasm once someone had posted the tracks from their new LP Go To Hell on YouTube and it had me making "the face". You know which one I mean. It's that scrunched-up grimace that you make when something is fucking gnarly. This thing is absolutely fantastic.
While not having that truly eerie presence that Grace had, which at certain moments was unsettling, though consistently somber and haunting all throughout, (even the old black and white photographs of presumably ancestral relatives within its packaging gave you the fucking creeps), Go To Hell is Mean Season with some fat trimmed off and well in fighting shape. It retains the key components that make them what they are known for, perhaps with less of the ambience of Grace but undoubtedly retaining a dialed-down version of that morbid, ghost-riddled character of theirs that no one else has been able to convincingly ape since (let alone make their own.) There's good crunch present here that is probably highlighted by crisper production values. Go To Hell is definitely not as warm as Grace, which probably owes a lot to its looming presence to 'just-so' knob positioning, but studio alchemy aside the band plays super-tight on these jams and display energy. By no means do they sound weighed down, either by the onset of age or otherwise. In fact, Mean Season sounds younger than time has previously captured them on these cuts, particularly on some of the redux material.
Aaron Kelly finds his practical niche on Go To Hell. He displays less of a tendency to try and sing a melody, rather, just belts it out from the diaphragm, dressing these truly dynamic and oddly vibrant (all things considered) cuts. Where as his peculiar, almost nasal performance from the early work was definitely a deal-breaker for some, here Kelly found how to make it fit. Two songs off of the Grace album are retouched here, "Abattoir (Feast Upon)" and "Pilgrim", their undeniable heaviest hitters. There are also some covers on Go To Hell. The band covers Integrity's "Feel The Darkness", Inside Out's "Burning Fight"; but most surprising and much to my delight was the cover of "Debonair" by the sick early 90s "Alternative" band Afghan Whigs. A favorite of mine when initially released, and having been an owner of Afghan Whigs releases since my youth, to hear this cover coming from my laptop as I streamed this blew me out of my electric-purple European bikini underwear. While completely out of left field, hearing Mean Season cover Afghan Whigs made odd sense, since the aforementioned also had a peculiar, coded darkness to them despite being a reasonably accessible band with video play.
Ultimately, you just get four new (or possibly old and unreleased) Mean Season songs, along with the two updated classics and three covers. Still, while not technically having rights to claim this a proper new album, it more than satisfies. Now if Indecision Records would just do a CD pressing of the fucker and not keep Go To Hell as a strictly vinyl release... I may just bring one home and not stream their shit for free on YouTube like a schnorrer... Now, if you fuck with vinyl then you must hook up your copy post-haste.
Sepultura -Morbid Visions/Bestial Devastation (RoadRunner Records (reissue)
While the band Death (Florida's Death, not the all-black Detroit Punk band) is often regarded as the fathers of Death Metal it wouldn't take much digging to uncover a small handful of progenitors of the sound before them. Their Scream Bloody Gore LP debuted in 1987 and its impact gave birth to a new scene, granted. A year prior, however, Sepultura had released Morbid Visions on Brazil's Cogumelo Records, an album that bears twice the ferocity and brute force that 'Bloody Gore could ever have mustered. Its funny how we generally carry the preconceived notion that Extreme Music is an "American thing" or a "European thing" and do not associate the sound with (tropical) Latin American nations such as Brazil.
Brazil is a fucked up place where all types of gangster shit goes down. It isn't all just "dick-and-pussy fun", though there is a lot of that to be had. We all think of the most intoxicating derivative of Latin being spoken by tanned sex-machines wading in thick-thigh-high water at Rio, or we think of that charming little number "The Girl From Ipanema"; but shit is real and gets gangster as fuck in Brazil, enough so to inspire truly visceral art which the gigantic South American country has done just that for a long time in just about every facet of subculture, particularly in extreme music. If you go on YouTube and do a half-a-dig you'll uncover some documentary about Brazil's insane Punk scene (which seems mostly centered around the presumable gold standard -which was the band COLERA).
As such, Sepultura's lyrical themes have largely been reactionary commentaries to the social climate of their home (and with time that of Earth in general). Yet, Morbid Visions does have its Satanic references thrown in for good measure -probably regurgitations of the obvious Venom and Celtic Frost influences that at the time were gateway bands for Death to become a 'thing'. Between the mentions of Old Nick and his bat-winged friends, the raw, primitive tone proportioned by untuned guitars and crude lo-fi recording (along with fellow Brazilian band Sarcofago) they served as a blueprint for Death Metal. More importantly, early works such as this record influenced some very bored Scandinavian teens into solidifying what would eventually become known as Black Metal, or its defining 'second-wave' at the least. (The run-on sentences in this entire post are out of control.)
It just does not get any better than this if you get a hankering for some savage old school Death Metal. The frantic riffing heard on here is like a power-drill in your adrenal gland. With time, their execution would tighten up and show some traces of technicality, and a slightly more obscure (and non-blasphemous) lyrical approach, but on their debut Sepultura are operating at their most stripped down, and quite frankly despite the superb musicianship that they would exhibit eventually on Beneath The Remains and Arise, this is the band at their most significant really.
On the RoadRunner CD reissue you also get the Bestial Devastation EP, a continuation of the first LPs approach as well as quite possibly being the record title that aided in coining the term "Bestial Metal". I truly do not revisit this enough and if yours is dusty then wipe it off and put it in... the disc too. If not, then do what thou wilt to stream this post haste.
The Adicts -The Albums 1982-87 (Captain Oi! Records.)
I've set sail again by way of another release from Captain Oi!'s gnarly mini box-set series. This time I finally added The Adicts to my collection to which they are newcomers to. Seems a bit odd that it has taken The Adicts this long to find a home here being that I am a sucker for all things related to A Clockwork Orange -my all-time favorite movie. The Adicts based their gimmick on the "Droogs" -the small set of juvenile delinquents from the cult-classic Stanley Kubrick film. Sadly, this voyage with the good captain didn't really fire on all cylinders.
I could have just as well picked up a copy of their first album, The Sound Of Music, and called it a day. The bulk of their work that I connect with seems to come from it. Everything else in this mini-box just doesn't have the juice that I need. A lot of it is actually kind of horrible actually, mainly within Fifth Overture and the Rarities collection. This isn't going to be a stand-out in anyone's collection unless they are a morbid, die-hard fan of The Adicts. Judging from the catalog beyond their debut, I can't imagine that I'd see too many of those around.
Stick to the first album, The Sound Of Music, and call it a day. Some of their better known, and better all-around tracks are from here. While often considered as Oi! by many accounts, there's a real skill at writing perfect 'party-punk' hooks with just the right touch of theatrics that makes the album very enjoyable. You will find that you can run the program back-to-back, and will do so just as I have every time that I have popped it in. As for the box, meh.... You'd be better off saving space for something better...
Mindforce -New Lords (Triple B Records.)
I have been anticipating this release like no one could possibly imagine. I became very excited about Mindforce before ever hearing their music just because of the fact that their 2017 EP ...The Future Of was released by Trip Machine Laboratories. I have been a longtime supporter of label-man Chris Weinblad's endeavors and huge fan of his 90s avant-garde Hardcore band Atlas Shrugged. Just based on TM Labs backing Mindforce's second recording effort, I knew that I was in for something really special. Not to mention, though I am about to, they represent the Hudson Valley/Poughkeepsie New York area. Until them, the only other band to my knowledge hailing from the HV was AllOutWar, whom went on to have considerable notoriety as well and have undoubtedly held longevity in the scene.
(Also, if you ever meet Erik Carillo and Taras Apuzzo from AllOutWar, ask them to tell you about a night at a show in Davie, Fl., when they toured promoting their first full-length on Victory Records, in which four very drunk and scandalous gents from Miami whom were double-fisting Olde English quarts and performing oral sex on a copy of HIGH SOCIETY while inside the Quickie Mart showed them a very interesting time in the Dirty South. Ask me to show you the footage sometime....)
I was right in my hypothesized delight from Mindforce. Their sound was a breath of fresh air, and a musically proficient one at that. Guitarist Mike Shaw's fretwork is stellar and technical yet free of almost-metal pretention. In many respects it is reminiscent of Leeway's AJ Novello in how he had a lick-heavy approach when it came to writing those sharp crossover riffs. Shaw's guitar style is not the only thing that has warranted Mindforce in receiving Leeway comparisons early on. Vocalist Jay Petagine has a vocal tone that is mildly similar to Eddie Suton's, but it is his stage charisma as a frontman that really draws striking resemblance to Leeway's mythic singer. That is not to say he's a Suton clone, he certainly has his own flavor and is probably one of the best front-men in Hardcore right now.
New Lords would be my first attempt to tangibly have Mindforce in my music collection since this is their first release that would be pressed on CD format and not vinyl only, perhaps thanks to some thoughtful marketing on behalf of their latest album's purveyor-Triple B Records. (I don't do vinyl!) While the near-half hour program was showing no lack of energy, what I did come away with from my first listen is the feeling that on New Lords the band took two or three steps backwards in their songwriting, pulling out open E chug-riffs (almost twice in one song at times) in order to cater to the dancefloor sure-shot. I went in on this album thinking that they were going to push the bar another wee bit and come with something even more spectacular than their last, which was better than its predecessor, and so on. I am not even slightly bothered by the 27 minute tracklist, although from reading around some scene-blogs and hearing a few podcasts that mention New Lords, the running time of this thing is a topic of discussion in many circles. However, what I am disappointed by, slightly, is that it is almost as if they unknowingly dumbed themselves down for the satisfaction of the fans so that these can have plenty of moments to finally execute super cringe-inducing, Hardcore-Kickboxing dance moves that they have practiced all week in front of their mirror. (Hardcore Roundhouse kick-dancing looks ridiculous when you can't get your foot over the height of your thigh.)
Look, the record is action packed with "dance" parts by the minute. Honestly the style approach that they take on here is way less on that Crossover-ish vibe that they had ran with for a fistful of previous releases. The open E mosh-breaks are direct throwbacks to 90s Hardcore Songwriting 101. Perhaps that may be a good thing depending on the intent. If there were such a course that one could take somewhere, perhaps on some online University in Buffalo, NY, then on New Lords the band wrote their thesis on the Earth Crisis/Militant War March riff. I mean, Madonn', it is just one after another after another with the chugga-chugga stuff. If you're between the ages of 16 and 25 and are just entering the wonderful world of Hardcore music then this album will tickle your pickle just fine. However, for a guy like myself and any other 'Hardcore kid' my age that saw this style become developed, proliferated, and then made a caricature-like fixture of Hardcore and its successive imitators, it just doesn't really move me into my Crouching Leopard stance before throwing a jumping sidekick followed by a handclap. (If you're from 90s Hardcore, then the last sentence should have made you chuckle.) Everything is on point here, I fuck with these dudes, and I do fuck with New Lords, but I just think it was a let-down in that it is a bit too generic to what Hardcore is trying to be right now and not the full, insane potential of what Mindforce has already exhibited.
Dead Can Dance -Spleen And Ideal (4AD Records.)
Anytime that I am fortunate enough to encounter someone throughout my travels and the topic of music comes up -if at any point the topic of 4AD Records should arise what ensues is an involuntary orgasm of the spirit and an ejaculation of words in gobs in order to extol praise upon this cult 90s music label. I own so many releases from this imprint currently, many I've had since their actual debut and yet I still have a good couple of handfuls to go. This is how stacked 4AD's roster was with class-act, off-the-beaten-path acts, off the top of my head, just to list a few of the groups that I am very familiar with (one of which is even a 90s favorite of mine), 4AD was home to: Bauhaus, Lydia Lunch, Clan Of Xymox, Cocteau Twins, Lush (so, so freaking good), The Pixies, This Mortal Coil and X-Mal Deutschland to name a very, very small few. They are still active and in recent times have even put out work by Miami rapper SpaceGhostPurrp. Finally, my 4AD section is starting to expand again with the first two albums by Dead Can Dance, of which I want to discuss the second of the pair.
I have read the word "breathtaking" used in music reviews numerous times throughout my life, and although I get what the reviewer was trying to convey I always found it so pompous. Sometimes, however, it is warranted to use when there is absolutely no other words to describe a record. This sophomore album by the mythic Dead Can Dance is just that -astonishing and awe inspiring so as to take your breath away. All of Dead Can Dance's sophisticated neo-classical stylings aside, by virtue of the acoustics on this album alone one is put into a state of reverential respect, ethereal wonder and even fear.
From its ritualistic opener which could have easily have been the score for the orgy-ceremony scene in Eyes Wide Shut, which leads into "Ascension", an ominous, symphonic dirge resonating with a condemning tone and the huge, hollow depth of a cathedral. In the right set and setting this album can be a religious experience, perhaps even a terrifying one. The more intense moments of Spleen And Ideal are balanced and relieved by both Lisa Gerrard's and Brendan Perry's vocals. Gerrard's mastery of her dramatic contralto in three octaves is as unsettling from its ghostliness as it is beautiful, and Perry's silk-road smooth croon is the portal with which one can identify with Dead Can Dance on an emotional level as opposed to the spiritual.
While often times, DCD has been placed under the umbrella of all things -ugh here it comes- Goth (puke), but really they are more like neo-folk music or even world music by some stretch of the word. Sure, there is a certain 'dark and mystical' theme throughout their work, but these recordings are so slick and classy that really you can't lump them into a Rock and Roll subgenre because there is very little of that present. Sure, there are some "dance-spooky" numbers every now and again in their very prolific discography that go edging around the post-punk waters. "Mesmerism" is a particular on the record in question that certainly has a tempo suitable for the creatures of the night, teetering on the brink of sexy and scary. "Advent" carries a quirky mid-tempo as well that I suppose one could sway lifelessly to, followed by ""Avatar" which punctuates the "harder" section of the proceedings. Honestly though, this is music much more suited for the emptying of Chianti bottles by candlelight. "Indoctrination (A Design For Living)", the album closer is perfect for sinking into your seat in a darkened room in order to absorb its elegance and restrained yet majestic tone. It's so classy and sophisticated that I feel as if I shouldn't be loafing at my desk in boxers and a Slayer T-Shirt while listening to it. This is a record that should come with a dress-code. This nine track, 38 minute album is a must have if you want to add something a little more high-brow to your palate. 10 out of 10 with no filler!!!
Black Funeral -Vampyr. Throne Of The Beast (The Devil's Elixirs Records).
It was by way of ridicule that I arrived at my deep appreciation for Black Metal. Fuck, I mean, if you take a peak at the first two issues of TALES OF PERVERSION zine (hit the link you pink), I pretty much made it my specialty to bust balls on any and all things related... and then I actually listened to it... and I haven't looked back since. Ironically, the very same elements that I used as cannon-fodder to make fun were the very same elements that lured me in. Moreover, for overkill on irony, the very first Black Metal album that I ever laid eyes on, around the time that I was a freshman, this Black Metal classic that made me laugh my balls off when I flipped the cover to see Euronymous standing there with his corpse paint, a ginormous inverted cross around his neck and a swashbucklers sword, would be the very same record that would partly consist of my first ever Black Metal purchase (Mayhem De Mysteeris Dom Sathanas and Darkthrone's A Blaze In The Northern Sky.)
Also, once I came to realize that deep down Black Metal is really more Punk than it is anything else it made me dig the trappings much more. The imagery, aesthetics and themes are as interesting as they are intriguing, and of course, as it is currently in present day Black Metal and its "off-the-beaten-path" splinter genres are the very last refuge for those seeking the most extreme musical expression possible.
Black Funeral is the longtime musical project of American occultist author Michael W Ford. This record in question is BF's first proper full-length that debuted in 1994, just one year after the first demo was released. From the moment you press play on this thing it is full speed ahead. The recording is certainly in the traditional "necro" vein, yet not as icy, rather, highlighting Ford's raw, fiery approach. It's almost as if Vampyr-Throne Of The Beast were recorded inside of a furnace. There is still the cold effect, a Scandinavian inspired feel executed in classic 'grim' chord progressions and creating that feeling of flight that I enjoy when I listen to Black Metal. Paradoxically, there are moments within (and the same can be said for other recordings by others of the ilk) that are quite relaxing despite the machine-gun blast drumming. Later on, Ford would go on to release Black Funeral recordings in more ambient styles including some "ritual music" pieces as well (meant for use in summoning the horned one I suppose). There is a small vignette in this album that foreshadows things to come in regards to experimentation in the short, atmospheric track "Spirit Of The Werewolf". Asides from this interlude that hardly clocks two minutes, Vampyr is Black Funeral at their most primitive and brash.
From what I can tell, this particular iteration of the release on The Devil's Elixirs Records is a limited, hand-numbered run of 513 copies (odd number of which I am sure has some kind of spooky-ooky occult significance). That may explain the $26 dollar price tag on this thing (tremenda clavada!). The label did a really nice job on the packaging and the red foil lettering of the logo on the cover is absolutely gorgeous, so at the least I got some craftsmanship for my buck. (I tried my best to showcase the red foil in the pic but it does not do it justice -much nicer in real life.) Still, beautiful layout aside, the price stings a little for a 28 minute playlist that leaves you wanting more at the end. Regardless of that, the fact that you are left wanting more is ultimately the greatest critique a record can receive, whether that critique is sincere and transparent or backhanded and passive aggressive. I am glad to have added this to the vault being that it satisfies my craving to collect credible, early US Black Metal.
Black Funeral's credibility not only lies in the fact that it began making rounds contemporary to the Norwegian phenomenon in a pre-internet age, but also it stems from Ford's quite prolific body of written work on occultism in many of its facets (he's published over twenty books). Now granted, any asshole can write a book (I've written two for fuck sake), but you have to respect the commitment as well as the passion. Even though most occultism is just kooky, self-styled, paint-by-numbers fun, I eat up all that kooky, occult fun, so Black Funeral and its sole musician and his credentials are right up my alley...
Cerberus eats from my hand
"Go to Hell" I thought I heard them say.
Stupid motherfuckers, this has been where I stay.
Here you thought I'd burn and fade;
but here is where I learned to play.
Here is where I learned to lay with wayward daughters that vanish by day.
Here is where I learned to dance.
Here is where I learned to binge, to purge as lust dictates its surge,
always on the verge of insanity and death.
Smell my fingers...
Smell my breath...
Women and gin till there is no money left.
(Afterwards I'll pay the price when i reawaken in the depths.)
Cerberus eats from my hand.
you are dog. i am man.
I radiate Theophany in hair-like strands.
Pleased to meet me. Kneel, don't stand.
now you've drifted across the river Styx and here I've learned a few new tricks.
So just plea guilty and take your licks, cause eventually I'll uncover a charge that sticks.
(Remember that here I judge as I see fit and I've got a mean streak in me that just won't quit.)
(I'll judge you worst then I judge myself... then off into your little cell.)
I'm the son of the morning. I shun the sun.
I'm a bastard of the moon, but its obvious I'm her chosen one-
when her rays favor me in the dimly lit night, and I live so loosely as you all sleep tight...
dreaming your small dreams in restrained delight, waking in nightmares to which you cling so tight...
Cerberus, he licks my wounds...
He hides his bones in my open tomb...
I walk him nightly, chain held tightly, he leads me where I wish to go, dog of war that guards my soul, mascot of my netherworld who turns the have-nots of my desires to the shining pearls in my crown.
It still didn't fall off though I've held my head down...
Invert me if you choose to nail me up, so I can nosedive home soon as you spear my side...
Insert your iron into my flesh... Hurts, but at last, sweet long awaited death...
Apotheosis will take place upon arrival...
Canonization in the fiery depths...
The ghost ship sails at night when he hears the siren calls, steering straight towards the rocks his course shall not stall. In the flotsam and jetsam of enemies and long-lost "best friends" he backstrokes through wreckage that sank all the rest of them.
