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The Drowning North
THE DROWNING NORTH e o saga de iarna in melodic death metal nordic — 22 de piese despre un om nascut in frig, despre marea care ia tot si despre nordul care nu iarta. De la portul mareelor negre pana in adancul care inghite totul: un copil al gerului e dat ghetii, isi pierde lumea in apa, castiga un regat gol de promoroaca, pleaca intr-un lung exil si se intoarce, in cele din urma, la mare. Prins intre maree si furie — predare sau revolta — el alege cenusiul. Chitari gemene armonizate, vioara plangatoare, growl adanc si inteligibil, scream inalt si sfasietor si un refren clean baritonal melancolic, carora le raspund vocea eterica a marii si vocea harsh a furiei. Melodie peste agresivitate, melancolie peste tot. Rece, cinematic, nordic — pana cand nicio dimineata nu-i mai invata numele.
Track List
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- The Harbor of Black Tides
The harbor sleeps beneath black water
No lantern left to call them home
The tide remembers every father
It dragged to bed in salt and stoneThe north wakes cold and hungry
It knows my name! (Name!)
It calls me by my dead! (Dead!)This is the harbor of black tides
Where the grey sea keeps its dead
I was born where the light dies
With the winter in my headThis is the harbor of black tides
Where the grey sea keeps its deadThe light dies
- Frostborn
Frostborn!
They cut my cord with a blade of winter
And laid me down on frozen ground
No mother's song, no fire's splinter
Just the long grey hush aroundI was given to the cold! (Cold!)
Before I ever drew a breath! (Breath!)Frostborn, I am the winter's child
The snow that never learned to melt
Carved from sorrow, born to the wild
The loneliest love a man has feltThe seasons turned but never warmed me
I wore the ice as a second skin
The world outside could never harm me
The killing cold was kept withinFrostborn, I am the winter's child
The snow that never learned to meltKept within
- Salt in the Lungs
I pulled the rope. The other end came up empty.
Salt in the lungs!
The black wave stood up taller than the church
And ate the harbour, every lamp at once
Your boat the Eilif turned her belly to the cold
I had your wrist — the cold undid my handsI heard you call me — once — your last word was my own
(My name!) torn from the foam and then the silence closed like stoneSalt in the lungs, ice in the blood
The deep took everything and left me where you drowned
Salt in the lungs, ice in the blood
I am still breathing in the place you went downThey dragged the harbour, brought up coats and chairs
A child's red mitten, half a wooden door
Your red knife floated up where your hands could not
I held it dripping while the harbour went to greyOne... two... I counted the waves
I counted you back up... you never cameThe buoy still rings your bell across the drowning ground
(Eilif!) — but the bell is the only voice the sea gave backSalt in the lungs, ice in the blood
The deep took everything and left me where you drowned
Salt in the lungs, ice in the blood
I am still breathing in the place you went downAhhh... ohhh...
The worst part isn't the storm.
It's the morning. The flat, calm, ordinary water.Why was it my feet on the stone
Why the air for me and the black for you
I would trade this breath, this brother's breath
For one more word the water never let throughWhy am I the one left breathing
(Where the water took everything!)Salt in the lungs, ice in the blood
The deep took everything and left me where you drowned
Salt in the lungs, ice in the blood
I am still breathing in the place you went down!The harbour keeps the lamps lit on the water now
And the bell still rings... for no one... but the coldThe other end came up empty.
And I keep pulling the rope. - Ashes on the Water
I burned what little the sea returned
A splintered oar, a salt-stained shawl
And watched the embers, grey and spurned
Drift out to meet the funeral squallAshes on the water
Nothing sails the way it came
I am the son the deep has taken
Breathing smoke instead of flameThe fire dies the way that men die
Slow, then all at once, then gone
I gave the flood my name to carry
And let the grey horizon take it onSleep now, beneath the tide
Where no morning learns your name - Oath of the Grey Horizon
I found his shoe in the shallows — empty, small, still tied.
The grey horizon took them
And gave the water back.
I count the names like ribs now —
Each one a low black wave.He carved a sparrow in the rowlock,
His two hands, his small knife.
The sea kept all the warmth they had
And washed the cold to me.No more a son. No more a son.
(No more a son!)OATH of the grey horizon —
I count the dead by hand.
No more a son, I am the edge of the shore,
No more a heart, an aim.
I will drink the drowning water
Till it gives me back my own.I knelt where the keel had splintered,
Where the tide gives up its dead.
I burned the nets, I cut the rope
That once held him to the deep.The sea has no ears —
(No ears!)
So I'll teach it to bleed.I buried his shoe in the dune-grass
And called it the last of my house.
The fourth name on the water
Is the one I keep for me.OATH of the grey horizon —
I count the dead by hand.
No more a son, I am the edge of the shore,
No more a heart, an aim.
I will drink the drowning water
Till it gives me back my own....Brother... I cannot find your hands...
The sea has so many hands... and none of them are yours...
I am done weeping. Weeping is warm.
I will be cold now. I will be cold as you.(Aah... ooh...)
Cold water, you took everything tender from me —
So take this last softness as well.
I forgive you nothing, mother sea.
I was a boy.
I was a boy.What kneels here on the killing shore
Is iron now, and salt, and aim.OATH of the grey horizon —
I count the dead by hand.
No more a son, I am the edge of the shore,
No more a heart, an aim.(Give him back!)
Empty... small... still tied.
(Aah...)
...A boy...
- Wolves Lead the Way
Wolves lead the way!
I called the wolves from frozen hollows
They answered to my grief! (Grief!)
Where I walk the silence follows
A kingdom built on teeth! (Teeth!)Run with me through the white and the red
We hunt the men who left mine dead!Wolves lead the way
Through the snow and the slaughter
I am the cold they obey
The shepherd of the drowned waterThe forest runs with us like rivers (Run!)
The moon is just a frozen wound (Bleed!)
And every throat the winter gives us
Will choke on what the wolves have chewedBlood on the snow
And the north says go!
The pack, the storm, the grey!Wolves lead the way
Through the snow and the slaughter
I am the cold they obey
The shepherd of the drowned waterThe drowned water
- The Pyre and the Pike
I kept her comb. The fish she carved. The teeth are gone.
Ash still on my hands when I close them
A small wooden fish worn smooth in my palm
The last warm thing in a cold severed kingdom
I burned every house but I never burned thisThe teeth are gone! (The teeth are gone!)
She combed the sea out of her hair with this
Behind me the pyre, the bodies I made
Before me the pike, the next throat, the next grave
There is no third thing
There is no meThe pyre and the pike
This is all the gods have left me
A fish that cannot swim
A father that cannot weep
I sever, and I burn
And I carry her broken comb
Not alive — just kept
The way frost keeps a woundThey tell me she would not know my face now
The hollow they hung where her father once stood
I held the comb up to a dead man's lantern
Just to remember a thing that was goodSay her name! (Say her name!)
I cannot — the war has taken even that
Behind me the pyre, the smoke in my throat
Before me the pike, and the cold and the boat
There is no shore left
There is no meThe pyre and the pike
This is all the gods have left me
A fish that cannot swim
A father that cannot weep
I sever, and I burn
And I carry her broken comb
Not alive — just kept
The way frost keeps a wound...The teeth are gone... I keep counting them...
There were nine... I keep counting nine...I went down to the grey to lay it in the tide
The comb, the pike, the name worn off the side
The sea reached up and would not take the weight(It gave it back!)
It gave me back the grief
The pyre and the pike
(This is all the gods have left me!)
But I kept her broken comb
And the gods could not take thatThe teeth are gone! (The teeth are gone!)
There were nine. She said it could still hold the sea.
- Crown of Rime
No one comes back for a crown.
I WON. The fjords are mine. The dead are mine.
The river stilled, their banners under glass,
I held the field, I held the dead.
Ten thousand mouths beneath the ice
And not one breath inside my chest.There is a boat in the harbour ice —
My son carved it, he was nine,
The hull still holds its little sail.
The boy who whittled it is mine no more.They set upon my brow a CROWN
(Of rime!) of rime that will not melt downI CALLED him — and the sea said NOTHING back!
Crown of rime, throne of snow —
I won the world I never wantedAnd no one comes back for a crown,
No one comes back, no one comes back(Ahh… ahh…)
The drowned do not return for gold.
I called the roll along the shore —
I had their names, I had them all.
I ran out of breath at the name before yours.I sit the throne. I hold the boat.
The rooms are wide, the wind comes through.
I am the only thing afloat
In all the world I broke for you.Eivor. The water's calm tonight.
Come and take your boat. Please.(Ahh… ahh… ahh…)
Crown of rime, throne of snow —
I won the world I never wantedNo one comes back for a crown
No one comes back, no one comes back
No one comes back.
…Not even me.
- Hollow Crown
All of it, for nothing
The throne is cold the war has bought me
The hall is loud with no one here
The victory the winter taught me
Is a crown of grief, a year of fearHollow crown
Hollow hall
I am the king of nothing at all
The drowned don't rise to see me reign
I traded everyone for painI have the gold, the spear, the story
And not a single soul to tell
I climbed a mountain made of glory
And found it was the throat of hellFor pain
- The Long Exile
I left the crown upon the floorstone
I walked into the white unknown
No banner, no name, no doorstone
Just the north and me aloneLet the kingdom keep its ghosts! (Ghosts!)
I am done with thrones and hostsThe long exile, the longer cold
I walk to where the maps run out
To lose the man the war had sold
And drown the king in endless doubtThe mountains close their doors behind me
The valleys fill with falling grey
And no one left alive to find me
I am a road that walked awayThe long exile, the longer cold
I walk to where the maps run outEndless doubt
- The Length of Night
There is no morning!
The night up here has no horizon
It does not end, it only deepens
I lie beneath a sky of iron
And count the names the silence keeps inThere is no morning, only me
And all the dead I cannot seeThe length of night, the weight of snow
The slow forgetting of my name
I am the candle burning low
In a winter with no flameI do not eat, I do not sorrow
I am the cold the cold forgot
There is no yesterday or morrow
Just the rope of thought I knotWith no flame, no flame
- Whispers Under Ice
Beneath the lake they call my title
The drowned ones speak in tongues of frost
They say my crown, they say my bride
They name the everything I lostWhispers under ice
They know my secret price!Whispers under ice
Voices in the white
They call me to the water
They call me every nightI press my face against the frozen (Cold!)
And see the faces I have drowned (Drowned!)
They smile the smile of the chosen (Gone!)
And pull me slowly toward the soundEvery night, come down
- The Deep Has Taken
I walked back down to where it took them
The same black water, the same grey stone
The years between could never shake them
The sea still calls me by my ownI hear them singing in the swell
The only ones who knew me well!The deep has taken everything
And now it comes to take the rest
I will not fight, I will not sing
I'll lay my crown upon its chestThe tide climbs slow around my ankles
Familiar as an old friend's hand
It loosens every chain that rankles
And pulls me from the bitter landThe deep has taken everything
And now it comes to take the restUpon its chest
- Beneath the Drowning North
The water closes grey above me
No struggle now, no breath to keep
The only ones who ever loved me
Are waiting in the drowning deepBeneath the drowning north
Where the cold forgets the sun
I give the sea my final oath
The winter and the man are oneThe surface fades to grey, then nothing
The light becomes a distant coin
And somewhere far the tide is hushing
The names the deep and I rejoinDown, beneath the drowning north
The winter and the man are one - Ritual of the Pale Choir
The pale ones gather in the water
They robe the drowned in weeds and salt
They sing the son, they sing the slaughter
They bless the winter for its faultWe commend him to the cold
Into the deep, into the fold!Robe him in the grey
Sing him down the black water
Sing the light awayNo priest of warmth will come to claim him
No god of summer knows his face
The only rite that dared to name him
Is this cathedral of the placeSing the light away, away
- Between the Tide and the Fury
The storm has thrown me to the water
The deck is gone, the lantern drowned
I taste the salt of my own slaughter
And sink to where there is no soundI will not go! (Go!)
Not yet, not like this! (This!)Caught between the tide and the fury
One says sleep, one says fight
Torn apart on the grey horizon
Between the drowning and the lightThe cold climbs up to claim my marrow
The current wraps me like a shroud
I feel the years grow thin and narrow
The surface fades, a distant cloudCome down, come down, my weary mourner
Let go the oar, let go the war
The winter and the sea are one now
There is no morning, not for youDo not believe her, she is hungry
Rise and burn the grey horizon! (Burn!)
The storm has teeth, and so do you
The dead don't get to choose the morningTwo voices tearing me apart! (Apart!)
Choose! the cold or the flame!Caught between the tide and the fury
I let the grey horizon win
Come down where no morning learns your name
The winter and the sea beginSleep now, beneath the tide
The winter and the sea are one - Where No Morning Learns My Name
No morning!
So this is where the journey ends me
A quiet grey without a shore
No crown, no war, no ghost to send me
Just the peace I prayed not forLet it come
I am not afraid of falling homeTake me where no morning learns my name
Where the grey horizon keeps me
No more frost, no more flame
Let the long cold finally sleep meI gave the world my every winter
I gave the sea my every dead
And now I give myself, no splinter
No fear, no fight, no word unsaidTake me where no morning learns my name
Where the grey horizon keeps meFinally sleep me
- Into the Grey
The harbor sleeps beneath black water
No lantern burns to call me home
The sea reclaims her oldest mourner
Returned at last to salt and stoneInto the grey, into the cold
Into the arms that took my kin
The story ends the way it's told
Right where the whole thing did beginInto the grey
Where no morning learns your name - The Last Tide
The harbor sleeps beneath black water
I come back one last time to drown
All that I loved the tide has taken
All that I was the cold pulled downOne last tide to carry me! (Me!)
One last night beneath the grey! (Grey!)This is the last tide, the last horizon
The winter and the sea are one
Carry me where no morning rises
Where no morning learns my nameThe wolves have scattered, the war is over
No storm to fight, no flame to feed
The crown of rime has turned to water
The oath dissolves beneath the deepCome down, come down, the long north calls you
The harbor of black tides is home
Let go the name, let go the sorrow
The winter and the sea are oneCaught between the tide and the fury
Rise one final time and burn! (Burn!)
No, let go, and come down
And I choose the grey, I choose the silenceThe winter and the sea are one
Take the name, take the north! (North!)
Take it all beneath the tide! (Tide!)This is the last tide, the last horizon
The winter and the sea are one
Carry me where no morning rises
Where no morning learns my nameThe harbor sleeps beneath black water
Where no morning learns my nameNo morning, not for me
- The Water Unfolded My Fist
Six years old. Red mittens. The ice said yes, then no.
(Elina!)
She wanted to watch the swans freeze
Where the reeds go black at the shore
I said stay close, stay close to me
And the lake unhinged its floor(Down!)
No crack, no cry, no warning — just the cold coming up like a hand
Elina, hold on, hold on, hold onI had her wrist. I had her wrist.
I swear to God I had her wrist.And the weight of her hand
Was the whole of the winter pulling under
I climbed toward a light that was nothing, was nothing
I came up alone
I came up alone
And her grip was still warm when the black water
Unfolded my fistThey found me on my knees on the white
Clawing the glass for a door
Clawing a name that the wind wouldn't keep
Till my fingers ran raw and the cold owned the marrow and more(Take me instead!)
I am the one who said go to the shore —
I let go, no — the water tore her from beforeI had her wrist. I had her wrist.
The deep dark slowly unmade my fist.And the weight of her hand
Was the whole of the winter pulling under
I climbed toward a light that was nothing, was nothing
I came up alone
I came up alone
And her grip was still warm when the black water
Unfolded my fistWe left her red mittens on the kitchen radiator.
Three winters now. They have never once gone dry.Every night I go back to the shore
Every night I go down again
I unlearn how to swim, I let the cold come in
Just to hold those small hands once more —And the weight of her hand
(The whole of the winter pulling under!)
I'd trade every breath I have stolen since that water
I came up alone
(I came up alone!)
And her grip was still warm when the black water
Unfolded my fistStay close. Stay close to me.
I never let go, Elina. The water did. The water did. - The Light Over Birch Hill
Three winters gone, my boots still know this road,
The same crooked birch, the same stone wall, the same load.
I rehearsed your names like a prayer for the dead,
Two mounds in the snow and a hymn in my head.The gate still sticks. I shoulder it the old way —
Then I see the small boots set out in the doorway,
There is bread on the sill, there is smoke on the eaves,
And a sound, not the wind, for the first time in years.And the hill breaks open and I cannot breathe,
There is green on the snow, there is gold in the trees —The windows are lit! The windows are lit!
No graves on the rise, only firelight in it —
Anna at the glass with our girl on her hip,
(Alive!) and her hands are still warm, (Alive!) and the cold lets me slip —
I came home to bury you, I'm down on my knees,
You are living, you are laughing, in the light over Birch Hill.A name I never met, a tooth she's just grown,
She calls every gull out the window her own —
Bjørn for the big one, the rest were Bjørn too,
And the dog goes mad in the yard like he always knew.I screamed for you down trenches of frost and of stone —
And you waited! you waited! you kept the lamp on!The windows are lit! The windows are lit!
No graves on the rise, only firelight in it —
Anna at the glass with our girl on her hip,
(Alive!) and her hands are still warm, (Alive!) and the cold lets me slip —
I came home to bury you, I'm down on my knees,
You are living, you are laughing, in the light over Birch Hill.Come in from the dark, love, your supper's still steaming,
I told her your face every night she was dreaming.
Three years I burned this candle to keep you —Now hold us, just hold us, the snow's turning blue.
The windows are lit! The windows are lit!
No graves on the rise, only firelight in it!
Anna at the door and she's running, she's near,
(Alive!) and I kept a green knife, (Alive!) a small sun through the years —
I came home to grief and I'm weeping with joy,
You are living, you are laughing, the spring's breaking through,
In the light over Birch Hill, I am home, I am home with you.It stays. It stays. It stays.
- Where the Heart Went
You're looking for my heart, brother. Let me tell you where it went.
You won't find it here inside my chest —
I was never built to keep a thing.
No morning ever learns my name,
So I saved nothing for the saving.I spent it all. The whole of it.
On a spoon gone warm, on mittens dry,
On windows lit where the graves should stand —
I poured my heart into your sky.So don't go searching in the man —
It isn't there, it never stayed —
Look in the small things that we made tonight,
That's the only heart I had to trade.(It stays in you...)
Not in me — it stays in you...
(It stays in you...)Brother, I cannot keep my heart —
But I was here. I was all the way here.
A candle does not keep its light,
It gives it — and the room stays clear.All the way here —
All the way here.You found it. You're holding it.
It was never in me, bro.
It's in you now. Keep it warm.
...Keep it warm.