1. |
State of Nature
03:17
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2. |
Knights Collapse
04:22
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Thus lands our fleet on Normandy’s shore
Just another day in a Hundred Year War
No idea we are headed for
The Battle of Agincourt
Marched days to Calaise, nothing to eat
‘Cept berries, nuts and spoiling meat
A diarrhoea diet to make any turn tail
Ever puked your pants in mail?
Our army is mangy, starving and stale
While the French appear happy and hale
Reclining in their lines, with advantage of time
But Henry has a plan in mind
He sounds the advance, let’s start this dance
We Englishmen take a chance
And approach their ranks, so close
They could smell our stank
Our archers loose volleys from our banks
Their cavalry vanguards panic and charge
In disregard of the sitch at large
For the field in the rain bogged thickly, quickly
Knight’s charge slow, their horses stick-swiftly
And squeal, in the torrent of bow-shafts
Bold steeds turning into frothing maniacs
Fancy this, Henrys plan worked fine
As crazed armoured beasts smash their own second line
Now sarge, sound the charge for our men-at-arms
We throw down our bows and heft pole-arms
Axes, mauls, dirks, daggers, swords
Crude wooden stakes hold noble knights gored
Now all that’s left of the van
Heaps of corpses taller than a man
Understand, we keep what we don’t kill
Capture and ransom those nobles at will
Lo our baggage is beset by Frenchmen
A force of slovenly serfs, three knights ahead of them
Camp followers, run now or die
For pillaging peasantry no loyalties lie
Henry was rowdy, but now he’s mad
He orders the killing of the captives we had
So burn down the huts they’re locked in
Hew heads, cut throats this day of St. Crispin
Pay no mind to the vanguard
Knock your bodkins in time
Our longbows snap and the knights collapse
The mud and their blood, and iron bind
We band of brothers turned butcher in the mud
‘Til the foe had their fill of their comrades blood
Turned about-face and withdrew
Amidst the jeers of we happy few
Glory to Bodkin and Country, the French were through
Bodies on the field like dew
We`d broke noble knights with nought but we`d brought
A peasants skull cap and padded leather frock,
One hatchet, one dirk, two measly dried sparrows
A longbow and full quiver of arrows
Ya a longbow with a hell-of-a-lotta arrows
One bow and a shit-ton of arrows
One bow and a fuck-load of arrows
Pay no mind to the vanguard
Knock your bodkins in time
Our longbows snap and the knights collapse
The mud and their blood, and iron bind
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3. |
Flayed on the Birch Rack
06:13
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By the morn light of Aireskoi
We spotted a party of twelve Huron
Three robed white men rowed at their lead
Meaning to peddle their toothless creed
Silence, we padded softly to the campsite of their portage
Loaded the thunder sticks, loosened our knives in their sheaths
Grandmother moon will watch the wrath of we Iroquois
They still slumbered as our firebrands struck their tents
A choking scrambling Huron cried
A slash of a tomahawk turned his jaw to a splintered wreck
Fires danced on canvas and hide
At close range our thunder sticks barked their doom
Rending wounds two palms wide
They pleaded for mercy in the light of Grandmother moon
Our laughter curdled the life from their eyes
From a white man’s head a scalp was torn
From his side a strip a’ flesh was shorn
Roasted an eaten in front of his eyes
Between his hand bones slid our knives
We drank from their veins
Cut lengthwise down their limbs, baptismal mockery
Boiling water was poured over the pussing remains of their skulls
Tie our spoils to the backs of the slaves
No nourishment they’ll trek for days
Festering wounds beat with a club
Nightly tortures fingers to stubs
We came across, the burial ground
A standing pyre, overshadowing
Silent in might between the trees
Our weary captives cringed as their forced to their knees
Presented to Aireskoi as his next sacrifice
Then carrying on, at the break of dawn, a palisade wall
Emerged from behind the forest glade
Within the villagers frenzied began to sing
Voices hopeful for captives we were
We were greeted by a tide, of jovial kinsmen’s pride
The villagers formed two parallel lines
A gauntlet awaited our ill-gotten finds
Their hides were battered raw, by axe of bone and rock
Prodded and pierced, the villager’s fiercely
Finished the ones who wouldn’t go on
Their eyes were glazed, their faces crazed
Their damaged flesh, hung loose and decrepit
Their dragging feet, left strips of meat
Thus the gauntlet ended at the feet of the rack
Arms lashed to the rack, heads lolling listless in despair
Our matriarch brandishes lake shells
Scraping their hides and rending tears
But by proving their strength on the rack
Even a foe may be our son
The victim becomes the captive
The tribe becomes stronger by one
The village takes part in their torture, as a whole
Our children torment them with fire-brands
Our elderly sear them with coals
But by proving their strength on the rack
Even a foe may be our son
The victim becomes the captive, but for now
The weak will be flayed, on the birch rack
Flayed on the birch rack
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4. |
Wandering at the Moon
04:01
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To weather the consequence, of this layman’s toil
Is to wrest ones solace from ones kin, ones soil
So I gaze into a turgid ink sea
And I yearn for the power that created me
Fools and cowards, false prophets and thieves,
Run amok as always, as ever with humanity
As awareness and betterment are hardly the same
To ignore one’s own foible is to breed ignorance from shame
So were wandering, wandering at the moon
To stride in the heady swathes of seething glory
Or when tendrils of cowardice form complacency
To ascend from emotion in the throes of indifference
Naught is wrought in truth but futility is constant
Then I stared into black depths and I felt weakness tear
For futility is not ever a reason for despair
For the conscience of mankind and the universe may well cease to be
But all shall be futile, and all are free
So were wandering, wandering at the moon
Then striding through the shimmering gloom
We were wandering at the moon
In the face of futility is conscience
This freedoms boon, to reach for the moon
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5. |
To Cultivate with Spears
04:51
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Zalwa qu Quazulu Nathal a leader, of the plains
Shaka Zulu, was his name
An incestuous son of Senzanagakona
To the tribe his existence was wreathed in shame
Driven away and disgraced he ran, to the people of Dingiswayo
Who soon recognized Shaka’s strength
And bade him return to claim his home
To cultivate with spears, the peasantry toiled only to see
The impis, drawing near ready to cultivate with the spear
For with the subjected slain it’s easier to gain
Their cattle their women their children their grain
iSolo khulu, Shaka Zulu forged an army of only the bold
He shortened their spears and widened them
To disembowel no longer to throw
Upon the death of Dingiswayo Shaka’s power filled the void
The impis ranged on ever further and all the neighboring tribes
Were enslaved or utterly destroyed
For when Shaka built his home, bulowayo as it became known
The place of execution for all those who crossed him
And this is where Shaka’s legacy resides
As imitators ravaged their neighboring tribes
A crushing of peoples in a cascading flood
A diaspora of pillage and plunder and blood
For out this chaos many nations were wrought
United in spirit from the battles they’d fought
Age graded regiments as the fulcrum of might
Impis ranged for the Ngoni and the Hey Hey
Both formed of the Mferane, Mzilikazi of the Ndebele
Built a capitol of death with Bulowayo its name
Shaka Zulu cast himself as a hegemon, with the power of life and death
Whenever he spat his subjects would leap
To save his essence from disrespect
But his doom was wrought within not by his enemies, by his kin
As a teetering tower, his burgeoning power
Attracted the ambitions of those he’d brought with him
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6. |
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They run all as one through wild field fern and fen
Pursuing survival for them and their kin
Old moon in their eyes, new sun on their backs
Feet padding softly on nature-worn tracks
How gloriously did this fair land provide
With plump beasts in the woods and fat fish in the tides
Dark soil so rich it ignores season’s whims
How could this fair land be for any but them?
In the tendrils of the twilight they gathered and danced
Singing their revelry to the spirits of the lands
Hunters, wives and shaman laid offerings to rest
Round the ancient stone face in their villages midst
Now no longer running but riding through the fields
The blasting call of a carnyx prompts their enemies to yield
Another cousin to be conquered, and carried in their wake
Why resist when reality shows that empire is fate?
The warrior, the prophet and the slave
The farmer, the trader and the knave
For in and of Imperium
In less than a generation, the face of this fair land was changed
Settlements and forts spread throughout the kingdoms range
The feudal rose from the pastoral, the road from the trail
Distant folks united by the coin the sword and the flail
Then with piercing prying eyes they peered across the waves
And built hulking galleys rowed by battle-captured slaves
For with lands on the horizon, and coffers spilling o’er
Their empire would not be fettered by merely a shore
The sailor, the merchant and the king
The soldier, the courtier and the queen
For in and of Imperium
Thus by their might they held all lands in sight
An imperial archipelago by right
As those spirits of their land that their fathers had praised
Bestowed them strength, so their kingdom was raised
For the ancient stone faces, jutting from the sands
Greeted them on all their to-be-conquered lands
How this elder-race had spread, so too would they
But unlike those forgotten ones their empire would stay
So in the slivers of the sunset they flooded the streets
In jubilant celebration of their imperial feats
Gazing with tearful pride at their own monuments on display
That cast a dark shadow on the elders-ones decay
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7. |
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Raise the hoary monument on the cliffs by the sea
Hew the kingdom’s myth into slave blood slicked masonry
Feed the smelting furnace with the stunted, coveted tree
Forge brittle iron into quick rough weaponry
Cut apart the sails and wrap the wealthy dead
Grind up the grain stores and bake it into bread
Net the mountain rivers and throw refuse in the streams
Slaughter the live stock to serve the royal feast
A dull sun rises over twilit cities resting smug in their opulent walls
Wealth in denial and denial of wealth
As their mirrored shadows justly fall
These shadows they fall through the night
On this decadent island kingdom
Why heed the fate of the elders? Their monuments dot the sands
Now the turgid ague of a looming deficit
Settles amongst the folk of the land
Their livelihood chokes on its own waste
And their children wistfully gaze from the sands
At shadows that fall in the night, on this decadent island kingdom
Unheard, the call of the elders, whose works decay in the sands
The shadows they fall in the night, on this evil island kingdom
Now heed the fate of the elder race, their monuments dot the sands
Suffer, the raving hordes insatiable
Suffer, the bursting civil pustule
Suffer, the rising merciless sea
Suffer, the tardiness of death
Shadows, shadows of man
A dark moon rises over piles of detritus
Strewn across the kingdoms demise
Slavering cannibals gnaw on the dead
And the destitute pierce the air with their cries
Under shadows that fell in the night, on this desolate island kingdom
Embrace the fate of the elders whose works decay in the sands
Shadows fell in the night, on that evil island kingdom
For akin to fate of the elder race their monuments dot the sands
Raise the hoary monument on the cliffs by the sea
Hew the kingdom’s myth into slave blood slicked masonry
Feed the smelting furnace with the stunted, coveted tree
Forge brittle iron into quick rough weaponry
Cut apart the sails and wrap the wealthy dead
Grind up the grain stores and bake it into bread
Net the mountain rivers and throw refuse in the streams
Slaughter the live stock to serve the royal feast
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8. |
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The mountains cast their shadow, over silent misted groves
Stirring in the brooding twilight, branches twisted by the cold
By jutting craigs of granite, midst the mildewed roots and mold
Mounds of earth stand foreboding, ancient wrathful pride untold
Untold
Where ancient spectres lie
For when the raven; stole the sun
Its rays were'nt blinding for everyone
Primal beings still ran, through thicketed moss matted dales
Driven on by thunderous warriors tales
Patrolling the edge of the sea, totems in the sand
They warn of vengeful hate, guarding this hostile land
A canopy of spirits, over the undergrowth
Sworn to vengeance on a primal oath
A barrow is dug to house, the carcass of the slain
The forest, reclaims the flesh
And a spirit roams with the release of death
Earth crypts of the ancients; where valoured hunters lay
Tombs of the elder gods; ever unconcerned with life or light of day
Through gales of the piercing fall awash with rain
Under stormy winters; frosted bane
A northern sun is; borne to spring
While the summer`s twilight; gathering
Under ever broadening night
Effervescent with ageless flickering light
Ever haunted by the warning
Ravens cry; in primal wisdom ancient spectres lie
Where ancient spectres lie, the end is nigh
For careless beings; unfounded in pride
The toothless warren of a dying breed
Will be robbed of their flesh for the forest to feed
For the forest will feast on the flesh of under beings
Where ancient spectres lie
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9. |
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Mysterium, tremendum et fascinans
Grovel before our prophet, out of fear
Beseech, false idols out of hope they’ll hear
Fall, in reverence at the image of god
But know, that in our faith lies a cost
Though, fallow the thought, or shallow the cause
Ethereal, power is wrought as false humility
A turgid divinity and fell conscience, all under a faith-threaded cowl
For in the throes of passion, or in pain
While the sparks traverse the pathways in our brains
All remains the same
Martyrs and miscreants all clamour as our messiahs arise
Mewling we crawl, in abject sacrifice
Mysterium, tremendum et fascinans
Grovel before our prophet, out of fear
Beseech, false idols out of hope they’ll hear
Fall, in reverence at the image of god
But know, that in our faith lies a cost
Martyrs and miscreants all clamour as our messiahs arise
For, we shall never again see God
Unless in abject sacrifice
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Scimitar Victoria, British Columbia
Scimitar is a metal band hailing from the island capital of Victoria, BC, Canada. Combining influences from melodic-death, folk, and black metal; Scimitar features uncompromisingly heavy drums, high-rollicking fingerstyle bass, dual-guitar-driven harmonies, and gruff yet sharply enunciated harsh vocals that deliver lyrics based in historical fiction and fantasy. ... more
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