1. |
(Living in) Sacred Time
05:38
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Spoken word intro:
Abide with us o’ living deep
'Til the hour we meet our end
Ere we sink to sunless sleep
Without the promise to ascend
Verses:
We live our days in service
To the far rush of your sea
The tides deliver mercies
That no one else perceives
Nothing hurts as it once did
With death so close at hand
Your gospel is a blessing
Though it raises up the damned
Lyrical refrain:
Chaos, cosmos
Cosmos, chaos
The stars, they cannot hold
Verses:
Natives of the living deep
Full straight before the storm
Islanded by oceans rough
Where more is hid than found
Mysteries of death misnamed
In silence see the sounds
Of winding sheets and suffering
A phantom earth beyond
You give us sense and soul
The wisdom that is woe
Breaking and unbroken
Like a wave upon the land
Nothing hurts as it once did
With death so close at hand
Your gospel is a blessing
Though it raises up the damned
Lyrical refrain:
Cosmos, chaos
Chaos, cosmos
The stars, they cannot hold
Verses:
We live our days in service
To the far rush of your sea
The tides deliver mercies
That no one else perceives
Mysteries of death misnamed
In silence see the sounds
Of winding sheets and suffering
A phantom earth beyond
Nothing hurts as it once did
With death so close at hand
Your gospel is a blessing
Though it raises up the damned
Chorus:
My dreaming god of wonder
My lonely god of pain
You crush me to the earth
Just to lift me up again
(repeat)
Just to… lift me up…
Chant:
And cosmos from chaos
And chaos from cosmos
And cosmos from chaos
And chaos from cosmos
Cosmos
Chaos
Verse:
And still nothing hurts as it once did
With death so close at hand
Your gospel is a blessing
Though it raises up the damned
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2. |
Only Reason
05:20
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Intro:
I ride rough from town to town
Tending to the deaf and blind
Once counsel to the English crown
Now doctor to the left behind
Verse:
Man must take care of man
While God attends to matter
If He has a master plan
It’s scattered on the darkest water
Chorus:
Only reason—can take us farther
Only reason—can take us higher
Only reason—can make us stronger
Rational angels, better, brighter
The gospel of science on our lips
Verses:
Oh, this seaside town offers me
A chance to try my cures
For knowledge is a mercy
Where ignorance endures
Despite my good intentions
They put me to the test
Distrusting my inventions
To help their dispossessed
Bridge:
Nature acts by general laws
Grounds for love and hope
Echoes of a heavenly Cause
Beyond the telescope
Living is the miracle
So common we forget
The sin is to be cynical
Before the sun has set
Know what you are
Chorus:
Only reason—can take us farther
Only reason—can take us higher
Only reason—can make us stronger
Rational angels, better, brighter
The gospel of science on our lips
Outro:
Modes of action and causation
Effects captured in sensation
Predicted chemical reaction
Laws of order and connection
Nature balanced to perfection
Only reason
Only reason
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3. |
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4. |
Now Silence!
04:53
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Verses:
The boy is like no other
More living spell than flesh
Even to his mother
Who receives each word afresh
His eyes are crystal white
Like salted tears a-frozen
A mark, a sign, a wondrous blight
First among the chosen
Installed upon an altar
He entertains their prayers
His devil of a psalter
Lifting up their cares
I test him with all caution
I test him in some fear
They say he is awash in
The ghosts of yesteryear
Damn this wrong and damn this town and damn its superstitions
Verses:
This box of mine alone
Can scope the depths of sound
It registers a tone
That strikes me as profound
Though far outside the range
Of normal human hearing
The boy not only hears it change
But fears it disappearing
The wind from out the cay
Might cause hallucinations
In a child so wrought to pay
Heed to these vibrations
Alas, of all I know
This cannot be misread
Could the wind below
Be a siren to the dead?
Chorus:
Please, now silence
Please, now silence
Please, now silence
Please, now silence
Damn this wrong, damn this town and damn its superstitions
Outro:
As silent as the deep
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5. |
Inmortuorum Memorias
05:07
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Intro:
We alone of Nature born
Are alive to mortal blackness
It comes to us, awake, asleep
A whisper unto madness
Verses:
Undone by the boy
I shrink from my disgrace
There can be no rest for me
’Til I understand this place
In my bolted room, alone
I try again my science
Test the box upon myself
Wracking up the silence
The sea, over and over
And the world, it disappears
The sound of breaking waves
Becomes my beating heart
The shadows take on form
And reason falls apart
The sea, over and over
And Hell, it bodies forth
Chorus:
The die seems cast
The future past
What can death mean
Without finality?
Verses:
Pandora would be jealous
Of this infernal box
The visions it releases
Both plague and paradox
Ghosts of what’s gone before
Memory as fix and pain
Lingering love transformed
Madness to make you sane
I can see, I can see, I can see your soul
Chorus:
The die seems cast
The future past
What can death mean
Without finality?
Time out of mind
Oh, carrion kind
What does death mean
To your divinity?
Breakdown verse:
My Lucy, sweet Lucy, come and take my hand
Unnatural or not, help me understand
Verses:
Can this be you at last?
Something more than memory?
My godforsaken love
Reborn in wayward energy
Blind past blindness ’til aware
The dead are buried in the air
I can see your soul
Verses:
Am I dead, unknowing?
Has my life turned full about?
I have to keep believing
The truth of things will out
Blind past blindness ’til aware
The dead are buried in the air
I can see your soul
See your soul…
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6. |
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7. |
Occulted
03:40
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Verse:
Mad or sane
Wax and wane
I struggle to resist
The gale of siren song
Trebled black
Echoes back
Drawing out the fear
We never will belong
Mad or sane
Verse:
Born to die
Truth or lie
Trapt inside the pages of
A mad trist yet untold
Hand in hand
I understand
Heaven’s midnight mirror
Hides the secret you uphold
Born to die
Chorus:
The sound from out the cay
Jolts me with its thunder
Who am I and who are you?
What good is it to wonder?
Nature seems a liar now
Its laws a devil’s dream
That fools us into thinking
Our reason is supreme
Breakdown verse:
Mad or sane
Wax and wane
I recoil in despair
And for the first time pray
Shamed by disbelief
‘Til my nightmare fades away
Outro:
The thunder out of time
Echoes in my head
Who am I and who are you
But dust among the dead?
The gospel of science
Broken by silence
(repeat)
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8. |
Exorcised
01:53
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9. |
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Verses:
Are these ghosts a music
Complex enough for matter?
Limbs the stab of violins
Bodies pitch and pattern?
Or, might they be a dream
As transient as breath?
An imprint on my sleep
Sly counterfeits of death?
So help me apprehend
What was and might have been
Where the laws of Nature stop
And miracles begin
You failed to heed our warnings
Never asking why
Too late you see we have no need
Of science from on high
Our laws preceded Nature’s
A wisdom that will last
As long as we bear witness
To our ancestral past
Though we blaspheme to believe
We have no need to grieve
Chorus:
Our song of ghosted silence
Music of rebirth
Ushers us from death to life
Like seasons of the earth
What was and what shall be
Bridge:
For your sin against our mercies
We will cast you on the sea
To drown or break upon the shore
(repeat)
To sea, to sea and believe
Verses:
It was a simple charity
To aid your deaf and blind
Nothing I did warrants
A judgment of this kind
I can keep your secret
On this you can depend
If naught else, but out of fear
Your dead would take revenge
Knowing something of the world
It would be naive
To trust you with our secret
And let you take your leave
The sea is vast and open
It cannot be denied
Its currents are uncertain
No matter time or tide
Resign yourself to this
Fate as second chance
Better than a sentence
Decided in advance
Chorus:
The beauty of the sunset
Heaven all aflame
I fear to see it close
Upon my mortal frame
This light it is a lie
Do not be deceived
The black of mourning comes
For more than the bereaved
When the stars align
Verses:
I did my best by you
By the light of reason
Following Aquinas
With no idea of treason
The boy led to the silence
Silence to the seas
The seas to dire phantoms
And hurtful memories
I can keep your secret
On this you can depend
If naught else, but out of fear
Your dead would take revenge
Knowing something of the world
It would be naive
To trust you with our secret
And let you take your leave
We will chain you in a boat
Bereft of rowing oars
And push you past the tide
Where the middle ocean roars
Chorus:
The very earth turns dark
Beneath my trembling feet
At the thought of going down
And drowning in defeat
What lies beneath the surface
Waits until the wave
That makes a stone of us
All within one grave
God parted night from day
In the middle of the sea
He bade the darkness rise
I pray the same for me
Our song of ghosted silence
Music of rebirth
Will call the heavens down
Return the night to earth
Outro:
May the son of God receive me
Raise me up above the wind
Though bound, I am no captive
Though condemned, I have not sinned
Things above and here below
All black uncertainty
Blind past blindness ‘til the end
What was and what shall be
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10. |
Hard Drift
04:09
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Verses:
What you don’t know
Your soul must answer to
Out in the drift
Your course is set, the judgment due
Wanting to breathe
Lungs too full for screams
Stars in your head
O’er the darkness of your dreams
Lyric break:
To sea, to sea and believe
Verses:
We walk with ghosts
Never to be forgot
The past shines out
From prophecies and plots
This is our home
An island of the blest
Loud roars the sea
And damns your science like the rest
Chorus:
The sea is rolling mountains
Your boat a paltry thing
Best surrender to the weather
And pray the sun is king
Be the stillness
In the quickness
Bear witness
To the wildness
Be fearless
In your blindness
Seek forgiveness
Partial chorus:
The sea is rolling mountains
Your boat a paltry thing
Best surrender to the weather
And pray the sun is king
Breakdown verse:
What you don’t know
Out in the drift
Wanting to breathe
Stars in your head
Restated chorus:
Be the stillness
In the quickness
Bear witness
To the wildness
Be fearless
In your blindness
Seek forgiveness
From what you don’t know
Outro:
The sea is a dark reflection
And there our world begins
When the dreaming god arises
To grant us mercy for our sins
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11. |
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For man, by the fall, lost at once his state of innocence, and his empire over creation, both of which I thought could be partially recovered, the first by religion and faith, the second by the arts and sciences. But creation is entirely and utterly rebellious. She resists our labors to understand and renders us mute watchers on the world. Perhaps that is our motive task—shared by the faithful, the artist and the scientist alike—to bear witness, in wonder and with a merciful spirit, no matter the scale or scope of this life.
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12. |
The Middle Sea at Rest
05:47
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Verses:
The sea takes me where it will
Changeful and demanding
The hope behind me still
Behind me still
The waves come on and on
Turning and returning
To wreck me by the dawn
By the dawn
What a mortal weight to know
The end before it comes
To die undreamed of far below
Far below
I spill into the raging sea
Knowing and unknowing
What this world can never be
Never be
Chorus:
In spite of name and honor
No matter how well known
The silence of the deep
Comes to each of us alone
Us alone
Verses:
No need now to pretend
Every life’s a lesson
Let my story be its end
Be its end
There’s something after this
A world-to-come of dreams
Called up from the abyss
The abyss
Chorus:
The waves overrun the stars
My rest, far off and near
The sea holds one last secret
If only I could hear
Outro:
All hours clapped together
A reckoning of weather
In thunder, foam and spray
Your wake the Milky Way
Breaking and unbroken
Like a wave upon the land
It’s a wave
A black wave
A black wave
Oh, the day will come
When we don’t see the sun
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13. |
Starlost
10:08
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Verses:
Born as hapless strangers
Lost, separate and apart
Our souls like distant stars
Defeated by the dark
Orphaned into life
We sense we don’t belong
Seeking hope, seeking rest
Revelation from beyond
Chorus:
Broken, black and blind
Life leading us astray
How do we find
The wings to fly away?
We love and hurt and wait
For better times to come
Adrift on seas of Fate
Stars gone deaf and dumb
Chorus:
This evening of our days
Reveals a vast unknown
Forsaken and for always
Lord of earth, alone
How small our hours have been
Surrendered to the cold
Why believe in sin
If the stars, they cannot hold?
Bridge:
Know what you are—wake up
Know what you are—wake up
Know what you are—wake up
Verses:
Born as hapless strangers
Lost, separate and apart
Our souls like distant stars
Defeated by the dark
Orphaned into life
We sense we don’t belong
Seeking hope, seeking rest
Revelation from beyond
Despite the fear and pain
We pray to dream it all again
Dream it all again
Despite the fear and pain
We pray to live it all again
Live it all again
Outro:
Know what you are--stardust
Know what you seem--starless
Know what you dream--starlight
Know what you are--starlost
Know what you seem--stardust
Know what you dream--starless
Know what you are--starlike
Know what you are
(repeat)
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Project Nightscape Portland, Oregon
Project Nightscape is the brainchild of writer-film director, David W. Edwards and guitarist extraordinaire, Tony Gaglio. Childhood friends, they've paired their talents to create a uniquely compelling progressive hard rock album inspired by some of their favorite artists, notably, Black Sabbath, Deep Purple and Rush. It's classic rock with a fresh, modern twist. ... more
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