1. |
||||
I WAS THERE
I was there when it all began
When roots took hold in fertile soil
A rumbling tension slowly built
And I never said a thing
I was there when the truncheons swung
The choking burn of pepper spray
The television said I’m safe
So I never did a thing
(CH)
I was there when the bullets flew
Golden wasps that seared the air
Bodies fell in graceless arcs
And I turned my gaze away
I was there when cells slammed shut
Gathered up and caged like beasts
But freedom isn’t lucrative
There’s money to be made
(CH)
I was there when the fuse was lit
A thunderclap of Heaven’s wrath
A million voices crying out
But I never heard a thing.
I was there for the awful end
The bodies strewn in ashen piles
They told us this would keep us safe
And we never learned a thing.
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2. |
Thoughtcrime
05:01
|
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THOUGHTCRIME
Disobedience
The architect
A coup d’etat
Of intellect
Violence
Implied or real
Annihilate
The new ideals
(CH)
(Thought Crime)
Submission is the only solution
(Thought crime)
Preemptive means to avoid revolution
(Thought crime)
Crushing you in a wave of suppression
(Thought crime)
Distorting truth in the name of deception
Friend or foe
The eyes betray
The hostility
That they display
Inner thoughts
An open book
We picked the lock
And had a look
(CH)
A crime of thought
Through and through
A punishment
For what you might do
Corrective means
To steer you straight
An enemy
Of a virtual state
(CH)
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3. |
Voyeur
03:58
|
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VOYEUR
Voyeur, I feel you watching
Collecting data
With lifeless eyes
Voyeur, I hear you breathing
I know you’re listening
A silent spy
Reach out your teleprescence
Like bony fingers
Around a neck
Choking upon your concern
Another number
You can’t protect
CH
I can feel you all around me though you’re far away
I was just another entry in your dossier
Voyeur, I hear your heartbeat
A steady pulsing
Accelerates
Voyeur, your senses flooded
A sound and vision
They can’t relate
Volumes of information
A vast collection
Digital lives
Recorded and collected
For the raw thrill
That you derive
CH
I can feel you all around me though you’re far away
I was just another entry in your dossier
Voyeur, there’s no fulfillment
Your dark addiction
Can bring to you
Empty, a broken vessel
A fruitless endgame
You must pursue
Dependence, a sick fixation
That brought you crashing
Forever down
A victim to your obsession
A gasping swimmer
About to drown
CH
I can feel you all around me though you’re far away
I was just another entry in your dossier
|
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4. |
Rise
05:33
|
|||
RISE UP
[Stand up]
A sleeping giant stirring
Provoked to wake
The winter sky is burning
Pupils dilate
[Stand up]
We are forgotten children
Orphans of dreams
Enslaved by gilded lies
And torn between extremes
Pulses pound like drums
What have we become?
Blood spills from our veins
Cast off these binding chains
CH
And if we fail, at least we tried
We can still hold our heads high
We are the strong, we are the just
Here’s hoping Time remembers us
[Rise up]
Fury like raging waters
The fuse alight
Discord and gasoline
Illuminate the night
[Rise up]
Beyond the point of breaking
The fear dissolves
A situation
Only violence can resolve
Pulses pound like drums
What have we become?
Blood spills from our veins
Cast off these binding chains
CH
And if we fail, at least we tried
We can still hold our heads high
We are the strong, we are the just
Here’s hoping Time remembers us
[Stand down]
A mighty giant’s fallen
Closing its eyes
Sewing the seeds
For revolution to arise
[Stand down]
We may concede the battle
But not the war
We still remember what it is
We’re fighting for
Pulses pound like drums
What have we become?
Blood spills from our veins
Cast off these binding chains
(CH)
|
||||
5. |
||||
HUSK
Each day like the one before it
A dreary life in monotone
Just a faceless drone
We walk these halls in silence
Keep our heads down, and tow the line
We bide our time.
CH
But as I walk, you pass me by
And for a moment, we lock eyes
A look of love, a look of trust
Reminds me I’m not some mere husk
Our daydreams long forgotten
Our hopes and dreams left to decay
In disarray
Still there remains a glimmer
A hint of flame behind your eyes
And all that it implies
(CH)
They tried their best to break us
And they succeeded to a degree
Indentured devotees
These precious, fleeting moments
Sustain us through the meaningless
Like Mercy’s sweet caress
(CH)
|
||||
6. |
Panic
04:00
|
|||
PANIC
A daily inundation of anger and of hate
Rampant disconnection birthed from bloody soil
A language of division permeates the air
Outrage manufactured, tearing at the seams
CH
Panic in the empire
Panic in the streets
Panic where the fear and oblivion meets
Violence of suspicion
Violence of the mind
Violence of advantage guided by the blind
Sounding the alarm, fanning all the flames
A creed of paranoia, philosophy of spite
Ratchet up the tension, tighten all the screws
Let them hang themselves from gallows of their own
CH
Panic in the empire
Panic in the streets
Panic where the fear and oblivion meets
Violence of suspicion
Violence of the mind
Violence of advantage guided by the blind
Hysteria prevails where reason dare not tread
Crushed beneath the pressure, shattered into sand
Among the smoking wreckage, the ruins of an age
Remnants of a riot no one can recall
CH
Panic in the empire
Panic in the streets
Panic where the fear and oblivion meets
Violence of suspicion
Violence of the mind
Violence of advantage guided by the blind
|
||||
7. |
Eye to Eye
05:45
|
|||
EYE TO EYE
A life examined can be unkind
The light of conscience far too harsh
When truth stares back in the reflection
We wish again to have the dark
CH
Face to face and eye to eye
We kill the truth and live the lie
Reality, a spiteful beast
Integrity long since deceased
A catalog of Man’s misdeeds
A map of every cruelty
Obscured by time’s soft, gauzy curtains
An exercise in futility
CH
Face to face and eye to eye
We kill the truth and live the lie
Reality, a spiteful beast
Integrity long since deceased
The looking glass reveals our flaws
Unflinchingly and without doubt
Eviscerate the rhapsody
To let the facts coming spilling out
CH
Face to face and eye to eye
We kill the truth and live the lie
Reality, a spiteful beast
Integrity long since deceased
|
||||
8. |
Belief
04:20
|
|||
BELIEF
Your belief is a commodity
A product to be bought and sold
Your faith, a liability
To make you easier to control
Your convictions manipulated
Your intuitions are not your own
You’re just a number inside a boardroom
A statistic, a faceless clone
CH
We let you think you’re in control
We own you right down to your soul
Your opinions are ours to shape
Like a sculptor molding clay
Your Information is ours to take
Your confidence, ours to betray
Your consent, utterly meaningless
A concept from distant days
Your privacy, completely trivial
A fairy tale whose value has decayed
CH
We let you think you’re in control
We own you right down to your soul
Your belief is nothing purposeful
Your very essence is pre-ordained
Your behavior, fully predictable
An algorithm, a link in the chain
Your fear is like our gasoline
Your information, our nourishment
Uncontained and uncontrollable
An assassin of your dissent
CH
We let you think you’re in control
We own you right down to your soul
|
||||
9. |
Corridor
05:45
|
|||
CORRIDOR
A geometric precision
Elegant lines converge to one
Tracing the bounds of your confinement
Living like prey and on the run
A prison built of perfection
Aesthetic servitude dictates
Step into line or face the fallout
Do as you’re told without debate
CH
Corridor
Corridor
With every facet in proportion
With every surface polished white
With every part moving in tandem
Machines that work into the night
Integrate to your surroundings
Don’t draw attention or make a sound
The ticking clock like a reminder of
The narrow path to which you’re bound
CH
Corridor
Corridor
A sterile future predetermined
Homogenous and uniform
You’re only here to serve your function
A set of duties to perform
Identical in every facet
A photocopied attribute
Just an acceptable composite
Of traits that someone else will choose.
CH
Corridor
Corridor
|
||||
10. |
Homeland Security
04:59
|
Surveillance Seattle, Washington
Surveillance is the more EBM-centric side project of Assemblage 23's Tom Shear.
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