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First listen: Damn, this was pretty good. Big fan of the atmosphere and neo-folk sound. Definitely gonna give this another listen to see if there's anything I missed.
Second listen: Note- this ended up being an analysis of the lyrics, so there you go.
Better Than You: Starting off strong with a baby wailing. Cool. Sweet song
Power and Sacrifice: Totally awesome, it has such a rich soundscape. Very repetitive, but it works in its favor. Noisy, anxious, driving.
You Know Nothing: Calm song after a very hectic one. This one didn't catch my attention on my first listen. Definitely more partial to it now. There's two repeating sections of the song- one characterized by a child-like melody and sparse instrumentation, the other much more crowded, hectic and heavy.
Song for Dead Time: Again, starts off calm. Eerie minor tune like much of the album. "And this ground, it will slide down, down into the sea / And when this body dies, no man will breathe". It sounds like the singer is speaking as the earth, singing about her death. In the second verse though we hear "Now the earth bleeds cold water in my open hands". Makes me think of a God who created humans and/or earth watching her creation being destroyed.
Will We Survive: "Now the sun will kill the garden / In a universe that's bleeding" - it's not just earth that's dying but the entire universe. Why? Who knows. But this song is cool as shit. He could be speaking from his own life- his own life and "universe" is bleeding. Or it could be larger than that. "But our loneliness will survive" and "Will we survive?" -the innate loneliness of existence will survive long after we ourselves are gone? Anyway, I think this song is looking at the world as larger than ourselves.
Love Will Save You: One of the songs I'd heard before listening to this album as a whole. Never payed much attention to the lyrics. The chorus is very pretty; the background vocals are beautiful- similarly to You Know Nothing- it has two or more very contrasting sections that repeats. "Love will save you" from all these things- from the death of the universe/reality ("When the poison eats the precious air"), from the harm others do to you ("From the evil and the greed of ignorant men", "From all the lies your lover told you"), from yourself ("From the guilt you feel when you betray your only friend", "From yourself when you lose control"), from the true nature of reality ("From the truth when you think you're free", "From the cold light of boring reality"), from the true nature of yourself ("From the corruption of your lazy-minded soul", "From your selfish and distorted goals"). Lastly, we hear about death again- "From the hands that pull you down beneath the sea", similarly to how it began with the death of the universe/reality. "But it won't save me"- the singer can't love or be loved by others. He will die as the universe does, not kept alive within the fabric of human spirit as others are. After his death, there will be no one to remember him and immortalize him. Due to being disconnected from the rest of humanity, others cannot hurt him because he has no expectation that they are his "kind". He thinks he knows the truth about his own selfish and cruel nature; he sees himself as selfish, lazy and estranged from humanity, a view he erroneously applies to all other humans, and thus accuses them of being fake and untrue to themselves (when in reality, it's only him who is selfish and estranged). Furthermore, he sees reality as boring and cold, and any other interpretations of it as being fake and naive. He doesn't want love, he sees it as stupid, something that would make him vulnerable. When he says "it will never save me", he says it with a sense of superiority. However, the pretty chorus, which is devoid of words and is made up of only feeling, expresses his true desire to experience love and be part of humanity. At least, that's the way I interpreted it.
Failure: "Pushing the stone up the hill of failure"- Sisyphus cheated death and he was punished for this by the gods. The "failure" referrers to his attempts to cheat death, and the stone represents the failure that he has to live with forever ("the punishing burden of failure"). His life is a cycle of doing the same thing, forever, to no avail. Although the song is bleak, there are glimpses of happiness ("they crush me with an image of my life"), but they are quickly overcome by the same misery.
Song for the Sun: Starts off a little more upbeat. "I will survive my life if I close my mind", "I will survive the light of the sun as it enters me"- answers what he asked in Will We Survive. Continues with the themes of dying and immortality.
Miracle of Love: Another song about love. This time, about love between two people specifically ("The young man is weakness in a lover's disguise / The woman is strong in her warm bed of lies"). "How will they hold what they can never perceive"- one person in the relationship cannot see the other for who they truly are because the other puts on a disguise and lies to them. "And how do they love what they fail to deceive"- she shouldn't be able to love him, because she can never make him perfect, and her relationship perfect, because she cannot hide everything from him and create a perfect disguise. Despite all this, the "miracle of love" lets them be together- "One lonely moment in your arms is the miracle of love". The song ends on an instrumental, possibly representing the love of the two, which shouldn't be possible, but is, solely because of love and its unexplainable magic.
Blind: Another track I'd heard before listening to the album as a whole. Very beautiful song. "And his pain meant nothing to me", "But I was younger then, and young men never die"- he doesn't feel anything for him and his pain, because he cannot relate to it- he is so far from death because of his youth. "When I walked out in the sun, I was strong, clear-minded and blind"- the sun (possibly representing religion or God) made him strong, faithful, happy, but also shielded him from some of the truth. "And if you saw with my eyes, you'd see what self-deception means"- now, he's older, and he realizes that he was deceived back then. "I was younger once / and I created a lie, I was self-deluded / confident and blind". "I feel dead, I feel cold, I am blind"- although he is older and sees himself as closer to the truth, he is still just as blind as he was before. He's replaced the "falsehood" of religion or whatever it was he used to believe in, with a different falsehood, of despair, failure and pessimism.
When She Breathes: Another song about the God who once created humanity and/or the earth. "In her shadow, the sun was born"- the sun, religion, was born in her shadow, as a consequence of her. "In her shadow, a new world will form", "and turn the living into sand"- she will destroy what she once created and create something new out of it, as soon as she pleases, at any time- "When she breathes, when she thinks it once".
Why Are We Alive: Pretty clear what this one is about. We hear a motif that was in Song for the Sun. "I'm not a man / and I don't feel love"- referencing Love Will Save You. He doesn't exist for other people, so that can't be the reason. "And I don't see anything / coming down from above" - he doesn't believe in God or religion, so that also can't be the reason. "But this world spins slowly / and I see a light" - he can't see why existence would begin to be, but despite that, existence (at least he himself) is undoubtedly real. We get a great instrumental section following this, possibly representing the man wallowing in his confusion and existential dread.
The Most Unfortunate Lie: Musically, this one didn't really speak to me that much. "And where are you now / The most lethal, all-consuming lie I ever told? / And where are you now / My unfortunate, irreversible lie?" could be referring to a person (maybe a past romantic partner, a child) or religion that the speaker spread and regrets now after seeing what its done to society.
Anyway, great album, enjoyed it a lot.
Favorite tracks: Better than you, Love will save you, Miracle of love, Blind, Why are we alive
Least favorite: The most unfortunate lie
Edit: forgot to add the links, woops
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