Visible Traces of Greatness

I’ve always had a favoritism toward rock, there’s something about the passion, the lyrical subject matter, and the attitude of the genre that I connect with.

When I was younger it started out on hard rock with Creed, yes you may laugh at me now...

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From my Creed days I got into grunge, Nirvana, and Everclear being my favorites at the time. As I got older grunge and hard rock didn’t really cut it anymore. My tastes got heavier and heavier, it started with System of a Down, Deftones, rolling into Killswtich Engage, Mastodon, Cradle of Filth, and I’ve been a metal head since my late teens.

Yes, this journey started with Creed and ended with Cradle of Filth.

Metal has been a major influence on my work as well. I have come up with scripts from songs, and album motifs. It’s a major part of my life.

Though it has been a major influence on me it’s not all I listen to, I enjoy goth, punk, some hard rock still, and pop... particularly powerpop is my favorite from that part of the musical landscape. That all being said there’s a variety of bands I love to death. One of the bands which I have a deep love for is the Canadian progressive metal band Protest the Hero.

Protest the Hero’s been a favorite for about ten years now. Their first two albums, Kezia, and Fortress are two of the best albums I’ve ever heard, both of them being concept albums of sorts. Kezia more so than Fortress, but I love them both, and I highly recommend you check them out.

After Fortress I didn’t really connect with their next three albums. Don’t get me wrong they were good, there were songs I really love, and I’ll still listen to on repeat, but the albums themselves, as complete works of art, weren’t to the same standard or passion their first two albums were.

That was until this past June when they released their latest album Palimpsest, it is a work of fucking genius.

It’s mostly all I’ve listened to since the June release.

Much like Kezia and Fortress, they return to working in the realm of concept. Palimpsest is a concept album written about the greatness of America from the perspective of non-Americans.

When the album came out I had to look up the definition of what a palimpsest is, it is a manuscript or piece of writing material on which the original writing has been effaced to make room for later writing but of which traces remain or something reused or altered but still bearing visible traces of its earlier form.

That second definition gives you a good gist what this album is about.

I don’t know about you, but I cannot help but think of the Constitution, and how it has been treated these last three plus years.

As to be expected with an album title like palimpsest, the band doesn’t pull punches on the problems with this country, but they focus on the things the rest of the world admire, and love about our country; instead of the MAGA white cis-het perspective of what makes America great.

Each song seems to tackle a different aspect of modern American life.

In this blog post I’m not going to go into every song on the album, but I want to highlight three songs for the purpose of making my point.

The opening track “The Migrant Mother” speaks to how the economy’s only working for a select few. The song taking on the narrative of migrant workers heading to California to find work. Lead singer and lyricist, Rody Walker sets the stage for the story with an opening verse I cannot get enough of: “My sisters and brothers they hated so bad / To see me go west like someone gone mad / To leave all my loved ones and kiss them goodbye / Just hoping I’d see them in the sweet by-and-by”.

The line “California promised heaven / (All the leaves are brown) / A heaven we could not deny / (And the sky is grey) / But the dust we’re running from still stalks us in the night / And all we’ve found’s a bitter lie” speaks to the thesis of the song, the unfulfilled promises of capitalism, and how the present economy is only working for a select few, yet everyone seems to think it’s working.

In about the middle of the album, the song “Little Snakes” addresses the native genocide part of our history, a black mark which Canada does share with their neighbors to the south.

Though for this song Walker only speaks to the American participation in the genocide. Setting the stage for the national embarrassment with the lines: “We can make an exception and they can make some concessions / Because there’s gold in the Black Hills / Armed to the teeth, we can make an example of every one of these savages / Because the rights they have, we gave to them / And we can take ‘em away without giving a damn”. Summing up the attitude of most white people toward the Native people of this land.

He continues with a verse with a Teddy Rosevelt quote: “Once somebody said / “I don’t believe the only good Indians are dead... But I believe [that] nine out of ten are...”. Walker then punctuates the quote with the remainder of the verse: “And so they took his head / And carved his eyes into the Native mountainside”. Just emphasizing the insult of Mount Rushmore is to the Dakota people of the Mid-Western United States.

The final track “Rivet”, Walker proclaims “(Lets Make) America Great Again”, following it with: “Land of innovation / Land of common sense”. Taking the slogan of white supremacist call to action, into a plea of sincerity, and love, toward Americans to bring back the country the rest of world has looked toward for decades. He continues to call out lunacy of our political climate: “What separates us now is off by less than six degrees / It's not necessarily character, it's opportunity / All praise be to the new god who speaks so elegantly / Who says, "America is not great, but it can be". I find this line to be hopeful, though it ends with the xenophobic line we’ve heard so much recently, it says to me we can fix this.

In the final lines of the song Walker addresses American’s skewed perception of our history: “And I know I’m not the first to say it / Not the first to have these thoughts out loud / No country’s history is free from bullshit / But everyone just seems so fucking proud”. Speaking to Americans inability to reconcile our racist history, strangely take pride in it, or putting our collective fingers in our ears yelling “La-la-la-la” as loud as possible.

Like I said earlier these are just three songs I wanted to highlight, but every song on this album is to that same caliber. I haven’t felt this passionate about an album in a long time.

I provided a link to the whole album on YouTube, right here, so if you’re interested you can check it out.

I honestly believe it’s a piece of art everyone should check out, if nothing else check out the lyrics to all the songs, some of them hit me hard, and make amazing points.

It’s truly music which is worth your time even if you’re not a fan of progressive metal.

I’m planning on making the September bonus episode of Geeky Nerd to be all about Palimpsest, and will go into a deeper dive into it, be on the look out for that.