1. |
Doubt & Discovery
04:41
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Doubt and Discovery
On a balmy Autumn eve so this tale begins. Our protagonist, an everyday Joe named Tim.
Walking home through the park, dry leaves crunch beneath his feet. The sound creates a
distancing and so he starts to think. After 30 years of building he's now set for life;
a house in the suburbs, two kids, a loyal wife. An office job with prospects, climb the
ladder every day. Then home to eat, watch TV and shower before bed. This is all he'd
ever wanted, had aspired to achieve. So why, he asks, do I feel this mounting unease.
I'm a model of social sanity, the blueprint of sobriety, an ambassador for morality,
yet contentment still eludes...
So he thinks back to a happier time. Before social pressures had clouded his mind.
Playing each day with his best friend Belarim. Invisible to most, but not to him.
A partner in discovery till one fateful night his father sat him down and said:
'My son, what do you want from this life? Look at what surrounds you, how we live, all
I have achieved. I could be yours. If you give up on these fantasies. Work hard.
Contribute to a society that has given us so much!'
With this, Belarim fades away and Tim assumes a life of obedience to make his father
proud. Onwards he now stumbles, through the dew soaked grass. Head swirling, thoughts
fragmenting. He feels numb, distant. An anaesthetic penance for all that has befallen.
Suddenly, in the bushes ahead, he notices two gleaming eyes staring through him. His
pace quickens, breathing slows, as he heads straight for them.
With an exultant grin, out steps Belarim. 'I'm here for you' he coos to his
beleaguered Kin. Tim could barely believe that in his moment of need, his long lost
best friend had returned to him again. But elation turns to horror as he quickly
recoils. As if in mockery, someone had decayed his flesh, removed the skin.
He asks his friend, 'why the decay?'. He answers, 'years of neglect have left me
rotting away'. With a lucid clarity, newly attained, Tim views how all his choices have
kept him so constrained. His job, his wife and kids; to gain his fathers praise. And
so, Tim has a revelation; they can all be erased!
He feels elated, alive, suddenly driven by a new found purpose. All doubt is dispelled.
'This is me, what I always should have been', he proclaims out loud to a passing
squirrel. He turns and strides forward in the direction of home. Head up, chest out.
Resolute and ready to perform all necessary tasks.
He arrives home. Indignant contempt surges as he views all that he once held so dear.
Vested memories, now worthless. He must repent, sacrifice, re-flesh his only friend.
Blood streaked and panting, he again recoils in horror as his friends still fetid,
lip-less grin greets him. Belarim slowly fades, his voice resonating inside Tims head.
'You cannot re-flesh the past, only grow the future. Now enjoy what you've created.'
Jonathan Byrne ©
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2. |
Solemn Sun
04:52
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Solemn Sun
Glowing with inadequacy
Knee deep in doubt
Desperately hoping
This is not what life's about
Running in circles
I'm dancing in my grave
Can't help but wonder
If there's any of me left to save
Swimming in second guesses
Apathy will descend
Frustration will follow
Now resigned to the end
By the roadside of the rat race
In the glaring full beams
My tires punctured
With sharp shards of shattered dreams
Now a solemn sun circles me
This ever watchful eye
A stark spotlight, on an empty stage
Rising, setting in stolid procession
A painful parade of my failure
Squandered opportunities
Hanging humourlessly
Like black clouds in the sky
All you never did,
All you'll never do.
Every moment stolen.
Will forever haunt you
John Richardson/Plagueship ©
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3. |
The Falling Façade
06:54
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The Falling Façade
Your powerful words,
Once painted pictures,
but the colour, and meaning,
Dripping into the gutter.
Every moral message,
Every sentence you utter,
It's meaning revealed.
For every sentiment expressed,
There's a truth concealed.
This falling façade,
Slowly revealing,
The secrets you guard.
Layers of lies,
Falling away like a cliff face.
For one you claim to love,
You secretly disgrace.
I'm recoiling like a pistol,
Reeling from new information.
Beneath the benign smile,
This chasm of deprivation.
All pretence abandoned,
The nice guy image,
Discarded snake skin.
This falling façade,
Slowly revealing,
The secrets you guard.
The corpse of your integrity,
Displayed by your denial.
Waiting to, sentence you,
Dying start your trail.
Now we awkwardly,
This air stagnant,
With words longing, to be said.
My patience aflame,
I could just tell her,
I could kill it dead.
Weaving the same lies,
As those you chastise.
Committing the same crime,
As those you condemn.
John Richardson/Plagueship ©
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4. |
Reclaimed
04:43
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Reclaimed
Another tyrant at the helm,
Steering me to drown.
Swaggering beneath,
His self declared crown.
So sick of sailing,
aboard your ego trip.
It's time I left you,
Your abandoned ship.
Your delusions of grandeur,
Swirling like storm clouds.
Visions of your future,
In front of baying crowds.
My dreams ripe for harvest.
Siphoning away my soul.
Forever riding high,
On these ideas you stole.
You've never seen me as equal
Merely a cog in your stratagem
Always trapped in your shadow,
A thug, blocking out the light
Behind the weave of bullshit,
Lies, calculation and wrath.
Those who writhe beneath you,
Merely pawns to pave your path.
Veiled venomous words,
impacting on my shell.
Barely leaves a scratch,
yet puts me through hell.
Through the endless smooth talk,
condescension and wit.
Hollow token gestures,
Not worth their weight in shit.
So assured of your power to manipulate,
discipline.
A pompous ego surrounds you,
A fetid veil to stagnate within.
Immoral to the core.
Everyone yours to use.
Oblivious to the woman,
Whose trust you abuse.
The truth emerges,
like a corpse from the water.
A sight you never wanted us to see.
Salting my wounds with your words.
Stripping me of dignity,
Your perfect image,
Forever tarnished.
The monster beneath the mask,
Drenched in denial.
Smothering each sin,
in vitriol and bile.
Blaming and shaming
Yet the failure is your own
Done digging deeper
My life my own
I could have taken so much more,
Your goals, your love, your life
I only took what was mine,
Barely penance for my strife.
Never your equal
Drowning in your ego trip
Left you at the helm
Of my abandoned ship.
John Richardson/Plagueship ©
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5. |
Worm's Eye View
05:52
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Worm's Eye View
When I look more carefully,
seems I've bitten off more than I can chew.
Life's empty charm falls away,
we're all confined to worms eye view.
Barely looking up,
Oblivious to the birds above
caged in your routine
A hell you pretend to love
work, sleep ad-infinitum
we're running in a wheel
no way to opt-out
I got the raw end of this deal
burdened with expectation
A million lives all the same
our passions extinguished
like damp fingers to a flame
A life filled with empty space
All the dreams you crave
drip through your fingers
Killing time to the grave.
Stuck on the bottom rung
of a sterile society
Destined to rack up the numbers
of worthless currency
am I really only,
what you can get out of me?
Agony aunt, a money supply,
a lover, an employee?
Beneath this thicket of flowery language
An ugly truth takes form
Empty words pass the blame
So unaware of the oncoming storm
Slowing killing the planet,
with every breath we take
doing nothing to change it
with every day we wake
When I look more carefully
Seems I've bitten off more than I can chew.
Life's empty charm falls away,
we're all confined to worms eye view.
Barely looking up
oblivious to the birds above
caged in your routine
A hell you pretend to love.
John Richardson/Plagueship ©
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6. |
Absence Of Divinity
07:51
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Absence Of Divinity
This disgusting planet,
Awash with war, disease and starvation.
As our loving creator,
Shafts his creation.
Billions of Prayers
Go without reply
Worldwide suffering
Silence from the sky
Your omnipresent saviour
Is watching children die
There were no souls to save....
Divine hands did not wave.
Universe; Expansion
Creatorless; Creation
This bleak and harsh truth dawns
Our vast world...
There were no souls to save
Divine hands, did not wave
A being of infinite compassion,
programming plagues.
To cripple, disfigure and kill,
genetic faults and birth defects,
Yet you argue freewill?
This perfect planet,
Littered with barren lands,
Submerged under oceans,
Bone-dry desert sands.
The godless cosmos.
Extending beyond imagination,
Empty, bleak, meaningless,
Your loving lord's creation?
A dust cloud swirled
collapsed to it's core
With nuclear fusion
IMPLOOOODDDEEEESSS
In all it's complexity,
devoid of divinity.
John Richardson/SG Mikaelsson/Plagueship ©
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7. |
A Slave In All But Name
04:37
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A Slave In All But Name
Grinding away, everyday,
Between birth and death
Squandering each second
Until your final breath
Trapped in a cycle
Of the innocuous and inane
Shielded from the truth
Numbed in the brain
There's a row upon row,
Of grave after grave,
the long forgotten tombs,
of just another slave,
Work till you expire
your humanity debased,
another name, another epitaph
A life to waste
Media's manipulation
Points a finger of blame
Distracts you from the reality
You're a slave in all but name
Somewhere locked
In the back of your brain
Lies a beast behind bars
Slowly going insane
It's an inkling, a feeling,
"There has to be more"
But you suppress it, ignore it,
Continue as before.
An inkling. A feeling.
That something is wrong.
Your life is a lie,
yet you just carry on.
John Richardson/Plagueship ©
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8. |
Madness, Escaping
08:50
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woooooosssshhhhhhhhhhhh wooooooooooOOOooooo0000oooshhhhhhyyyyy
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Plagueship Leeds, UK
Progressive/Extreme Metal
Messing with guitars in bedrooms around Leeds est 2012
Heavy as a cruise ship; catchy as the plague.
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