The plague has come to rouse forth its rats
Sing for Year Zero!
Woe betide us all,
The ashen and the hollowed
How might we escape the sentence of Gehenna?
Doomed as we are to rouse forth our rats
Sing for Year Zero!
Woe betide us all,
The sick and the sallowed
How might we escape the judgment of Gehenna?
Doomed as we are to rouse forth its rats
Sing for Year Zero!
The plague will come to rouse forth its rats
Again and again

Until we're given nothing - forever
We'll have ourselves to blame
Before a dying God
Where might the thieving rats burrow?
When a titan falls a Judas hangs

The plague has come to rouse forth its rats
Sing for Year Zero!
Woe betide us all,
The haggard and the haunted
How might we escape the sentence of Gehenna?
Doomed as we are
To rouse forth our rats
Sing for Year Zero!
The plague will come
To exact its revenge
Before the fall

Give them nothing - forever
Who then stands to gain?
Before a dying God
Where might the thieving rats burrow?
In Heaven or in Hell on Earth

Another Flood is coming
To wash away the excess of a Golden Age
There is no way back from the place alive
If we dare to stand where better men died

At the terminus of unfreedom
Is a chorus of teeth impotently gnashing
Reeking in excriment and filth
Like grains of draining sand to the hourglass

Have we passed this event horizon?
Did the age of free will end?
Has the will of the world collapsed?
Take a look at what you've done
If we are but meaningless animals in a meaningless place,
Who are we to question the Lord thy God?

"Men must endure there going hence,
Even as their coming hither,
Ripeness is all."

Doomed as we are
Must the Cowards among us
Lead us to war?
Doomed as we are
With the gallows above us
And our shadows below
Doomed as we are
Must the cowards among us
Lead us to war?
Doomed as we are
In HEaven and Hell on Earth

The plague has come to rouse forth its rats
Sing for Year Zero!
Woe betide us all
The ashen and the hollowed
How might we escape the sentence of Gehenna?

They yearn for what they fear
They fear for what they yearn
And their time, too, will come

Alas, our fates are not unlike the dead themselves
Devoid of form, shape or depth
And there is nothing left but
The taste for mindless violence

Shells of men
Gorged in flesh
Jaws of Hell
Hear them roar

Alas, our fates are not unlike the dead themselves
A distortion field through us and them
And there is always another circle
In the inferno

Terror belli, sown by the seeds of war
Terror Belli, for the vast Terra Damnata
Terror Belli, in shredded guts and gore
Terror Belli, all hope abandon
Terror belli, bound to a faithful whore
Terror belli, for the vast Terra Damnata
Terror belli, in the ashes of our ruin
Terror belli, God's mercy on you swine

Wind, water, fire and earth
Are the destroying angels
Concealed in the hands of savage men Reformed in a state of nothingness
Here the gods will divide the sun
When Even the Ground is Hostile

Terror belli, sown by the seeds of war
Terror Belli, for the vast Terra Damnata
Terror Belli, shredded in guts and gore
Terror Belli, all hope abandon
Terror belli, bound to a faithful whore
Terror belli, for the vast Terra Damnata
Terror belli, in the ashes of our ruin
Terror belli, God's mercy on ye

Hammer, nails, coffin and cross
In the sleep of reason
No one transcends the circle of death
This world is beyond all reckoning
For the wounded, the dying and the dead
No soul save ye. No soul save ye.
No soul save ye. No soul save ye

When Even the Ground is Hostile
Defile the final sickening hole
When Even the Ground is Hostile
God's mercy on you swine
When Even the Ground is Hostile
There is no past. There is no present.
There is no future.

No matter the scourge of life
No matter the faithful whore
No matter the ashes of our ruin
Such is time:
No world for the newly blind
No world for the newly blind
No world for the newly blind

Beyond the shifting sands
Is an odium to an unknown god
And behind a murderous tide
Is a fawning christ on the other side
Give it life, give it more
Lay another wreath down for Mother War
Unto the ages of ages
Give it time

Beyond the shifting sands
Is an odium to an unknown god
And behind his murderous tide
Is a fawning christ on the other side
Give it life, give it form
Feed the gaping mouth of the stellarvore
The dead will soon be yours
Give it time

Imagine this, if you will
Upon the straight and narrow
A paragon of disharmony
Where one can only dream
Eventually the tide breaks
Into the longest of shadows
The saeculum turns
The candle burns at both ends
Chaos is not the exception
Into the longest of shadows
The saeculum turns

The king will kill his jester
And too, our instincts to laugh
Our first emancipation;
Arisen in vain
In a world as written by liars
The words will come when they ought to
Into the longest of shadows
When the saeculum turns

Into the longest of shadow
The saeculum turns
And the storm will be perfect

Beyond the shifting sands
Is an odium to an unknown god
And behind a murderous tide
Is a fawning christ on the other side
Give it life, give it more
Lay another wreath down for Mother War
Unto the ages of ages
Give it time

Flesh remembers but time forgets
For the last survivors
Are the first for whom they came
What use is flesh without a skin to shed?
What good is time absent a dream to die?

As God made them
As sin marred them
Glory rejects them

On the Eighth Day
The LORD created suffering
If you seek the devils to till the earth
You need only look around you

Rome. Byzantium. Carthage.
Into the rubble
Again, survivor's guilt
Is the Taboric Light
How might we hide from
The cauldron of fire?
The holy birth of violence

We‘ll heed no din for a battle
The blood beats cold in the blink of an eye
Feign consent to thrust upon the governed
Across the broad side of Occam‘s Razor

Each age must pay a price for indifference
You needn‘t look any further
The universe is wrought with their works

The Somme. Donbas. Stalingrad
A Wagnerian echo
Again, survivor‘s guilt
Is the Taboric Light
How might we hide from
The cauldron of fire;
Mankind‘s natural sickness

Et in Arcadia ego
A false refuge is the tempest to come
Final is the call to dominate the other
Until we breathe the sound of
Occam‘s Fucking Razor

As God made them
As sin marred them
Glory rejects them

"He walked out in the gray light and stood and
he saw for a brief moment the absolute truth of
the world. The cold relentless circling of the
intestate earth. Darkness implacable. The blind
dogs of the sun in their running. The crushing black
vacuum of the universe. And somewhere two hunted
animals trembling like ground-foxes in their cover
Borrowed time and borrowed world and borrowed
eyes with which to sorrow it."
- Cormac McCarthy, The Road

Here lie the wages of war,
From the womb, to the grave of thine own
The broken arm of the Atlas points
To Shadow Zion.
Hope dies last for the afterbirth of creation
Who loathe the sun to rise
At Shadow Zion.

Here lie the diamonds of death
Mined with the hands of thine own
With pleasure in our surrender
At Shadow Zion.
Here, we'll see how deep the rot runs
When there is nothing left to die
At Shadow Zion.

There is no turning back
Once we have surrendered the fire

Here lie the rivers of blood
That flow from the sons of thine own
Where True North points
To Shadow Zion.
This place yields the horrors of the world
In its absolute collapse
At Shadow Zion.

Doomsayer, what say you?
Is the creation's a final purpose
With which to sorrow
Doomsayer, have you heard the clarion call?
It is our nature, after all

Has there ever been and doubt
That it would ultimately come to this
At the earth-dividing line
Where a star once shined
As this shoreless void
Has been reduced to nothing
Here, Earth's last picture is painted

They will come crawling
Like maggots from the rot
Nature takes back everything
And redefines life
And when the pendulum reaches
The peak of its arc
There will be only one truth
And it's the bitter one
Doomsayer, what say you?
Is this creation's a final purpose
With which to sorrow
Doomsayer, have you heard the clarion call?
It is our nature, after all

Somewhere a star once shined
But its light has failed
And the world has grown cold
Somewhere a child cries out in the distance
Disinherited, abandoned and alone
And a vulture rears its rabid eyes
This is where earth's last picture is painted
I suppose It's as good as any

Has there ever been any doubt
That it would ultimately come to this
At the earth-dividing line
Where a star once shined
"The dog returns to his vomit
And the sow returns to her mire
And the poor fool's bandaged finger
Goes wabbling back to the fire."

Before you die upon your cross
There is an ending to everything
That redefined life
And when the pendulum reaches
The peak of its arc
There will only be one truth
And it's a bitter one
They will come crawling
Like maggots from the rot
Nature takes back everything
And redefines life
And when the pendulum reaches
The peak of its arc
There will only be one truth
(And it's a bitter one)

Somewhere a star once shined
But its light has failed
And the world has grown cold
Somewhere a child cries out in the distance
Disinherited, abandoned and alone
And a vulture rears its rabid eyes
This is where earth's last picture is painted
I suppose It's as good as any

Somewhere, a new sun rises
But all our graves go unvisited in the end
At Shadow Zion