1. |
The Coin-Op Guillotine
04:18
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Hypnic jerk, and I’m woken from a dream
We were pooling pennies for the coin-op guillotine
They gotta give us bread but give us roses, or lifeless he reposes
In a puddle of blood by a deadly blade a-gleam
Your eyes glazed over while you sat unlistening
You said your head’s on fire and every thought is kindling
A tired life is a wild ride for the saddest boy on the waterslide
When the breadcrumbs only lead to where you’ve been
But the last thing said while we lay in bed
Is that “I love when you invoke my death”
When the grey gauze mist descends on me like sleep
So how does it seem like I’ve been coping?
My brain is fried and my spirit’s broken
Working for the coin-op guillotine
If you’ve got a cross to bear, call my name I’ll see you there
A 3-beer-buzz or bust these days, hungover international break
Time slides glacier slow, and the gallows concrete will hit like a pillow
House a white whale, all of your exes ache within your solar plexus
Heart erupts and the pavement splatters, I think I’m right, I don’t think it matters
Two sounds collide upon the breeze
Sunday service, Sunday league
From either side there comes unholy scream
How’s it look like I’ve been dealing?
Ten-tonne truck struck full of feelings
Longing for the coin-op guillotine
If you’ve got a cross to bear, tell me what it costs in prayer
We’ve gotta pool all of our pennies,
Between us we have plenty
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2. |
Holy Smoke (2005)
02:56
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From the other side of gender-neutral bathroom stall
“Of all the assholes in this town I hate him most of all”
Every vodka mixer in the club was not enough
Nowadays it’s Live Laugh Love and listen to Death From Above
Forward, morning after, cleanse your sins inside a dock dry bath tub
Between the hunt sabs, ACABs, sobbing, being sick
Hearing your name in the chorus left me prostrate in the pit
There is nothing here to set the scene
No notable geography, or pathetic fallacy
You’re the only thought in my head
Don’t get me wrong I love my friends’ kids, sure they’ll grow to be good leftists
Bet they’ll make their parents proud and make the best of what they’re left with
But they don’t buy the beers I drink, and they don’t drink the beers I buy
No children and no profession, walking dead at 37
Forward, morning after, naked if not for two blister plasters
She held a cold can of Summer Fruits between her warm thighs
Condensation glistens, sweat beads drip into my eyes
She’s turning me to God no joke
Mother, daughter, holy smoke!
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3. |
A Psychic Wound
04:00
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Wake me up from drooling on my shoulder
To watch the Teignmouth waves go rolling by the window
Is it a glorious view unless you say so?
Unto the belly of a beast where we can lay low
I can see his rotten toothbrush in the bathroom mirror selfie
They say put him down, a sickly dog, but competition’s healthy
Coffee rings, a perfect circle, I appreciate the beauty
Do you still have that one tattoo?
That’s how it works, of course you do
It’s a psychic wound you can’t conceal
Closing, opening, never heals
It’s a cosmic cheque you never cashed
Curse the Universe for what you lack
I try to forget it, it comes back to me
Tied to the pulse of the sea
Broke down blubbing at the pharmacy, begging the doc to dispense to me
It once was ours but now it’s mine, these things get better over time
Love life living as a stalking horse, guinea-pig-headed I’m a martyr of course
If you’re not the one that’s leaving, you’re the one that’s left behind
You can buy your hopes and dreams now, at the affiliate link
Selling back the solidarity they got given as a gift
They’re calling themselves artists, while they’re lapping up the paint they’ve spilt
Exist with Jester’s privilege, secular girls with Catholic guilt
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4. |
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A recurring dream intrudes
Shit-faced on the nightly news
I’m sure of this as I’m of you:
Spit will mend the bruise
Our life flashed before my eyes
Aerial toll house and I
Caught a glimpse, Heaven says “hi”
Spit will mend the bruise
Bite, a Sunflower State scar
‘Wait’ plays by the Secret Stars
To reach such heights, to drop so far
Spit will mend the bruise
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5. |
Long Throes
04:19
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God appeared to me, trying to ease my doubts
Told him everything’s okay but I’m glad he reached out
Tell me how many hours in any single dull day
Can I pray to a league table but still it don’t change?
And how many times in just one miserable life
Will they vote for the bastards who would sooner annex paradise?
You stand unmoving while the world keeps turning
Thought your heart was broken, but it’s only yearning
Union Flag is waving while the building’s burning
Embers ablaze, long throes always
Do you tire of excuses that you make for your parents?
How “they worked hard for their money", for your future inheritance?
You’re all in agreement that the police are useless
They want them emboldened, Baby, you want them bootless
The punks on the playlist, are crooning for kindness
Asking “why can’t we all just get along?”
Me and my friends are sadists, backbreakers for spineless
Wish ‘em dead and then we’ll put it in a song
Capital don’t care, we’re eating at the trough
I’d like to teach the world to scream at all of the above
Anxieties and maladies and falling out of love
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6. |
Feast of Tongues
05:02
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Love lies bleeding in dead bouquet, dread the dripping years and wish away each day
Swear I’d live through all of your nightmares if it meant that I could sleep okay
She says the body is keeping score, lost in sudden death, she can’t take it no more
And if laughter’s the medicine we need then this misery is therapy
I want the trust of every animal
Gonna bay for the blood of those that are hurting ya
When the black cloud comes, if one flame flickers
We will feast on the tongues of the last bootlickers
Love lies bleeding’s a sobriquet, as the petals fall the pet names do the same
Keep a list of what ails me, tare to the elderly skeleton inside my frame
Time will come when we know that we oughta, drive to the horizon of American Water
Bankrupt, a frozen donation thermometer
Grab you by the hips and say it’s you that I’m grateful for
To the tune of the National Anthem
Of a country that didn’t survive
In a language I’d learned and forgotten
I’ll stay home keep the garden alive
A milestone, a millstone
A molehill to die upon
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7. |
The Order of the Seasons
03:56
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I turn to the booze and my thoughts turn to you
But I’m not blaming the drink for the things I do
A matching tattoo with a girl you don’t see:
Your best friend that you think of as enemy
With mine in the bar, boring on about xG
I stare at my phone, I am willing you text me
You sleep on the South Coast, with a boy who’s milquetoast
I’d eat him for breakfast
I look above me there’s a dirt cloud. A grand piano, fraying rope
While the happiness ain’t certain, you know the heartbreak’s guaranteed
When the halo slips, we beg instead
Give us this day our daily dread
My thoughts turn to you, so I turn to the booze
I’m only blaming myself for the things I do
Shame comes quick and it won’t ever pass
I watch a Berocca fizz in a dirty glass
Summon the spit, swallow my meds and my vits
Would your blood run cold, from a birthday wish?
You leave or you’re powerless, a cream-getting sourpuss
My sweet words are curdling
It’s been many years, since I played a high line
They ask you how you feel, you say “I feel fine”
The order of the seasons depends on when you’re born
I start count in Winter, and heading for a Fall
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8. |
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(instrumental)
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9. |
To Hell in a Handjob
04:07
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Shuck, shedding my skin
Devil’s at the door and I might just let him in
Though I love them like a brother, me and my friends are sick of each other
Little to do, a positive menial attitude
An ocean house upon collapsing stilts (a breaker coming)
The sky’s a pall, our blooming bodies wilt (an endless nothing)
We’re waiting at a waning precipice
There’s salt in all the sugar, ants under the leaves
But I believe
A dawn of colours never seen, spill like tears at a memorial bench
A balm for you, a tribute to a guardian angel bored to death
Moral panic breeds goose-stepping, can’t just stand by rubbernecking
Malignant noise, solid gold men to Toilet Boys
There’s grief within my flesh and bones, cut me watch the sorrow flow
Floating in the flood now
One thousand memes I sent to you, emoji reacted to
This is all we’ve got now
There, but for the grace of God, we all go to Hell in a handjob
Undeserved last minute winner, we’re into town without our dinner
Mortal joy, so close to Heaven, if I’m first punch you’re two to seven
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10. |
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‘Entry of the Gladiators’ tinnitus plays in my skull
Climb the Anhedonian Mountains just to circle the plughole
It’s with regret I am succumbing to nostalgia
Been thinking ‘bout you on that Lanzarote lounger
God only knows why, she’s worrying about me
God only knows I am scurrilously making this about me
It’s not as if I want her to, I want for nothing
Each evening, morning, afternoon, I want for nothing
Saw your Bundesliga boy in A&E
Blues and twos from Leisure Leagues, my bildungsroman reads
You cannot call whitewash a rivalry
Drown him in a deep dish pizza, kiss the last breath from his cheeks
Gets the Clown Blood pumping, way more bitter than the taste is
She fucks to cum, I drink to be drunk, and both of us are wasted
(Can we all calm the fuck down?)
Parasocial puppet master, every sucker in between
Sacrificial Muppet pastor, to a thousand needy teens
And I moved Hades so, he extinguished the fire
That’s what they mean when they proclaim the boy’s a lyre
Orpheus’ head bobs in the ocean
I admit it takes one to know one
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11. |
kms
02:36
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Food court fountain’s bubbling
In a ghost arcade
Slim fingers sieving through the rubble in
Bittersweet nightshade
No lie I would lay down my life
For any rat in the road
Yeh I’d lay down my life for you
Depressive episode
Some golden oldies radio
Plays your first kiss (later than your friends did)
Binbag blackout, your landlord pinned for curtains
Two brine-soaked kids
It’s a medical condition to hold such inhibitions
Second serving, sophomore slump (so called ‘cause you suffer more)
Paid partner validation is no route to salvation
Sewer swimming, down in the dumps
A wave away
Scratchcard inside an envelope
Little effort for fleeting fun
I truly hope that both our luck is out
I’d kill myself if he won
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12. |
III. Surfing a Contrail
00:37
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(instrumental)
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13. |
Moonstruck
03:27
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Crane my neck to see the supermoon, as the top deck gets hotboxed
Swore ourselves we’d have a Shandy Summer, we ain’t slumming, no
You gotta detox to retox
When the light falls, in silver slabs, through the window, a selenograph
When the light falls, I illuminate, I am moonstruck, it’s a welcome fate
Night takes colour from the dusk now, paints it crimson in my jaw
(I tumble from the pedestal)
Count the stray hairs in my wet shave, costly words from mouth of cheapskate
Sticky floors and stiff applause
It’s hard to find the romance, in a town not known for sunsets
Bad vibes at the toast station, your victories, your regrets
Let us die in comfort, laid upon electric three-piece suite
You and me, antipodes, the Earth’s collapse, we finally meet
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14. |
0898 HEARTACHE
05:16
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Cavalcade through antemortem, terminal suburban boredom
Summon second magpie for a small dopamine hit
You wait and watch your own self die, not final act but in real time
You are the sight and seeing, you’re a reflection of it
Grind my bones into the finest snow
Lay me and melt me in a crack of sun
Restored to earth, afforded a second birth
Dine on my rotten fruit for years to come
Line engaged cradle to grave, you occupy liminal space
A recipe for disaster, a table laid for two
I’m mouth agape arms open wide, not to receive but crucified
The wind whistled a tune I stole and sang for you
You’re a million bucks and I am avarice, you know how I hunger for it
I couldn’t draw a dime in 50 states
Nonarrival to your party, I did Five Halves for my birthday
Bitter, lager, Guinness, cider, lemonade to chase
No talk of the shape of the ceremonial counties
There’s no Runners Up Hall Of Fame
I plucked a white-hot shooting star, to wish upon when times are hard
An asterisk against your name
0898 HEARTACHE
You’re calling me a mistake, just call me if you want a bad time
Dial 0898 HEARTACHE
If your calling me’s a mistake, then tell me why we’re both still on the line?
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15. |
Adult Acne Stigmata
02:53
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The full moon is a wound. A blemish on the beauty of the sky at night
It’s bathing me in blood while you reflect its light
You can change your mind like sun and cloud above, moving between, behind
You’re shirtless in the shade, I’m pulling down the blinds
Orange peel cheeks, peach skin fuzz, adult acne stigmata comes
Can you once see what you love without imagining it gone?
It’s All Hell, we know too well
If all my fears at once should flood around my shoulders, trickle down my throat
I’m pulling up the bridge, they’re filling up the moat
What could I expect from living like the tarot in the poker deck?
You’re royal and you’re flush. I’m tower, swords and death
My eyes shine like two pound coins I found upon the pool table rail (heart swells)
You’re so beautiful, the sky is blue, but we both know too well, it’s All Hell
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