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(Lyrics by O.P.)
A clown in a transparent delusion of omnipotence
Scratch the surface and find an ugly brat
Gnawing himself in endless shame
A spouse who places trust above everything
As long as it feels nice
Then she leaves and trusts someone else
An elitist waiting for the “new dawn”
And the collapse of human values
Is always the first to hide and betray
What am I
But a prison of these reflections?
As soon as I open my mouth
I become what I despise
I can´t trust even myself
But hatred and loath are poor companions
I would just like to live without this
But somehow it never even begins
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(Lyrics by O.P.)
I nurture a trauma in my past
A challenge never faced
I let it haunt me for it makes
The contingent feel necessary
Each one is a center of his own
Whoever coined the idea of oneness
Was not a man of great faith
First there is multiplicity
And only then the need to reduce it
I always make it for sure
That I won´t satisfy my dreams
For it´s better to live in grief
Than to face the disillusion in all success
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(Lyrics by Shoo)
Heed the cries of a moron
He claims a debt for his misery
May the seven descend
And bring him justice
There are two kinds of people
Idiots and those who lie
And so may it be the latter
Betray even some signs of conscious thought
The truth is either terrible
Or terribly boring
Satan whispered my ear
The world is flawed, you do better
I am the cosmocrator
Of a reality more real than truth
That of mine, full of misery
Of my own choosing
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(Lyrics by O.P.)
I turn my sight from the fruitless negation
To the ideal that was too fearsome to face
I turn my gaze judging others
To my own principle of action
What sense was there to think
That an ideal should come along in flesh and blood?
And if it somehow did
What would there be left of its loftiness?
I turn the consuming flame of hatred
Into nurturing heat of the inner of sun
And the coldness of despair
To calmness in my striving
Is it not faith in the idea
Which gives energy to its denial?
Fear rather than hardness
That mocks fragility?
Yet in all I face an insurmountable barrier
No matter how I try, it is hardly a glimpse
Of what I absolutely ought to be
And there´s no longer the solace in misanthropy
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(Lyrics by Shoo)
I stand before the great enemy
That cannot be beat or be fathomed
Not humbled, not kneeling down
But surrendering, just the same
To have led a life of
Great and horrible deeds
And yet subtly flawed
Pride escapes my thought
For it is for the destitute
And the very poor alike
There was just pain
And work to be done
Utterly unable to transcend
The limits set by the coarsest
And the finest of materials
The thought-matter of man
The depth of being
Lies not in our power
But in the power of
Satan in man
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(Lyrics by O.P.)
Like a point in the continuum
There is nothing constitutive in me
I am nothing but absence
My presence is pure shame
Nothing to be done
Yet nowhere to rest
I have given everything
But that which gives always remains
Every day is like waking to a dream
It does not feel real
But it´s ruthlessly there
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(Lyrics by Johannes Nefastos and O.P.)
The golden egg made whole by its shattering
Pride consummated when I touch the ground
With my feet, with my hand, with my mouth and my forehead
Here is the mirror that was lost
Beyond the colourless rainbow
Not God, but Me in God
Taking the serpents from His mother's hands
You are the final stream of beginning
The fire of the last and first question
Coiling, twisting, straight omnipotence of a god-child
The play, the stage, the brightness
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Buy DIGIPACK CD from our ESHOP:
metalodyssey.8merch.com/product/verge-the-process-of-self-becoming-cd/
4-panel Digipack CD, 16-page booklet with lyrics and track-by-track commentaries
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Undoubtedly one of the finest Finnish black metal bands, VERGE feature musicians that play or have played with other esteemed underground acts like Charnel Winds and Saturnian Mist, among the others. Thanks to their previous works – two fascinating full-length albums and a few splits – VERGE have proved to speak a unique black metal language that bends the misanthropic roots of the genre to their will and to their progressive music vision, uncompromising and highly original like most part of Finnish metal.
VERGE's third and most mature release is titled “The Process of Self-Becoming” and is a concept album “loosely based on philosopher Sören Kierkegaard´s theory of existence stages”, as the band explains. “Each song has been written from a particular subjective existential stance and the crisis it inevitably faces.”
Divided into three chapters – Aesthetic, Moral and Religious – and graced with precious lyrical contributions from Shoo (Charnel Winds) and Johannes Nefastos, “The Process Of Self-Becoming” is an extremely ferocious work, yet a deeply meditative one, and it perfectly captures the wavering, tortured nature of its philosophic contents and existential dilemmas. The violent assaults of “The Decision Beyond Calculation” and “The Pride In Despair” dissolve into some of the most intense rock-oriented guitar solos ever heard within the context of a black metal record, thus emphasizing the continuous struggle between reason and doubt, while the tremendous final bacchanals of “The Bedrock Gives Way” and “Grounding in the Unground” seal the album with majestic crescendos and dramatic words: “Not God, but Me in God / Taking the serpents from His mother's hands / You are the final stream of beginning / The fire of the last and first question.”
When the echo of the last notes dies out, there it begins our process of self-becoming, a difficult quest towards illumination... where illumination rhymes with damnation.
released September 15, 2017
VERGE is:
O.P. - Vocals, pump organ
A.K. Lead guitars
K.L. - Rhythm guitars
O.K. - Bass
M.H. - Drums
All compositions by O.P.
All arrangements by Verge
Recorded, mixed and mastered by Tom Brooke of Tonehaven Studio in 2016
Pump organ recorded by V. Lahti
All photography by Maija Lahtinen
Art direction and layout by Francesco Gemelli
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Cat. Nr. IVR082