Asphalt Fever

[Intro] [Slinky, Middle-Eastern-influenced electric guitar riff loops slowly] [Ticking hi-hats mimic the sound of frantic cicadas] [Male Vocal - Hushed, sweating, breathless mutter] The pavement swallowed the sun. Now it breathes it back out. [Verse 1] [A heavy, sluggish trip-hop beat drops in, 88 bpm] [Male Vocal - Languid, exhausted rap delivery] The concrete is a battery storing up the blaze. Refusing to release the grip of the brutal days. I press my hand against the brick at two o'clock at night. It burns against the center of the palm and holding tight. There is no ventilation in the narrow avenue. The oxygen is heavy and it alters what we do. The temperature is rising, making every shadow bake. A suffocating oven that the city architects make. We stagger through the corridor, dragging heavy feet. Surrendering entirely to the cruelty of the street. [Chorus] [The bassline thickens; the guitar wails with heavy delay] [Female Vocal - Soaring, ethereal, drenched in reverb] The asphalt fever claims the mind! Leaving all the quiet thoughts behind! We are baking in the center of the grid! Forgetting every single decent thing we did! [Verse 2] [Beat strips back to just the kick drum and ticking hi-hats] [Male Vocal - Paranoid, rapid, slipping into delirium] The mercury is climbing, shattering the glass. Watching the hallucinations on the pavement pass. The air is warping, bending every straight design. I cannot trace the border of the solitary line. The sirens sound like predators hunting in the haze. A predator adapting to the madness of the maze. I strip away the jacket, I strip away the shirt. But nothing stops the radiating, subterranean hurt. The grid is just a furnace, the buildings are the coal. Extracting every droplet of the moisture from the soul. [Chorus] [Full atmospheric density returns, sweeping and vast] [Female Vocal - Soaring, pushing the upper register] The asphalt fever claims the mind! Leaving all the quiet thoughts behind! We are baking in the center of the grid! Forgetting every single decent thing we did! [Bridge] [Music drops to just the slinky guitar and heavy vinyl crackle] [Male and Female vocals alternate and intertwine] [Male] The horizon is a blur. [Female] *(The foundation starts to crack)* [Male] The sanity is gone. [Female] *(And it is never coming back)* [Both] Just a pressure cooker built of iron and of stone. Melting down the marrow and the bone. (Let it rain) Wash the thermal glow. (Let it rain) Nowhere cool to go. [Chorus] [The beat slams back in for a final, massive groove] [Female Vocal - Belting with absolute, unrestrained sorrow] The asphalt fever claims the mind! Leaving all the quiet thoughts behind! We are baking in the center of the grid! Forgetting every single decent thing we did! [Outro] [Instruments drop out one by one until only the cicada hi-hats remain] [Complete silence] ***