Geryon - See Extinguished the Sight of Everything but the Monster

from Self

October 19th, 2015
6 tracks
49:28
Self
Self
Geryon - See Extinguished the Sight of Everything but the Monster
0:00
7:47
Geryon - See Extinguished the Sight of Everything but the Monster
Terzij de Horde
Carry on, and avoid the pains of looking inward and seeing how I've been obtained Carry on, and cherish this power, these remnants of pride that have remained To know whom I belong to Is to know what moves my hand I have taken a high seat among the devils of the land Thus I spake: If not me, who then? If not me, how then? So it must be. So it will be. Beyond the bounds of permitted aspirations History claws upward Below the ringing of noble discourse Fate devours the world And so, pattern and plague, It claws through me And so shapes the reach Of my dreams So it will be So it has always been I have gone into the lands of torment And within the pale of exclusion I held a banquet For the elevation of the self Hells exposed and tamed Into hierarchies of fear Accepted I create distance and division Pardoned I am cloaked by circumstance Esquired I give in and let go
10:41

The album focuses on the problem of self. Six tracks explore different ways to live, or fail to live, with self and world. They embody the struggles these paths and strategies create: blindness, suffering, a desire for release, the destruction of self and others as well as the turning towards -or away from- life.

Self as prison, self as a source of power, self as vessel for manipulation by outside forces, self as shield and as inner world, self as medium for Dionysian rapture, self as something to be overcome.

In the six songs that constitute ‘Self’, the rage of black metal is paired with a cathartic destruction as well as a contemplative, sometimes crawling melancholy. Instead of navel gazing or the worship of constructs, ‘Self’ is analysis forced. A cerebral celebration of liberation at all costs and a requiem for spheres rendered apart.

The artwork of ‘Self’ depicts ants, consumed by Ophiocordyceps. These parasitic fungi appropriate the brains of whichever host they infect, to manipulate and effectively destroy its self-regulating features. Through this annexation, the ants become empty shells of what they once were, governed by a destruction from within, imposed and irreconcilable.

Credits

All songs and lyrics by Terzij de Horde
Recorded in February and March 2015 at Studio Independent Recordings, Utrecht (NL)
Recorded and mixed by Quintijn Verhoef
Mastered by James Plotkin

Photographs by Dr. Charissa de Bekker
Artwork by Richard