Behold That Which Burns Inside The Light [Rasta-Swazta-Skazi’s Re-Tuned]

[intro - no silence, immediate orchestral blast, then sudden complete silence for 4 full seconds, then single bass note, then the chant begins] [chanted in unison, low and devotional] before the word before the sound before the thought before the ground of all that is before the light before the burning before the night [verse 1 - feral blackened tremolo over doom crawl, sacred chaos from the first note] They gave you a lesser god And told you to be grateful They gave you a warden's face And called the chains faithful But I have seen behind the veil The one the veil was hiding The Invisible Spirit Infinite and self-abiding No emanation of the demiurge No architect of limitation The Father of the Sabaoth Before the fall of every nation The Barbelo knew this face Before faces had a language Forethought held this light Before light escaped its anguish [pre-chorus - every instrument detonating, sacred fury] THIS IS NOT THE GOD OF CHURCHES THIS IS NOT THE GOD OF KINGS THIS IS THE LIGHT BEFORE THE ALTAR THIS IS WHAT THE ALTAR MEANS [chorus - pig squeals erupting under choir harmonics, inhaled gutturals beneath exhaled gutturals, manic highs shrieking through all of it] BEHOLD THAT WHICH BURNS INSIDE THE LIGHT THE FATHER OF ALL FORETHOUGHT BEHOLD THAT WHICH BURNS INSIDE THE LIGHT THE PLEROMA BREATHING OUTWARD BEHOLD THAT WHICH BURNS INSIDE THE LIGHT THE BARBELO SELF-REFLECTED BEHOLD THAT WHICH BURNS INSIDE THE LIGHT THE ETERNAL SELF-PERFECTED [guttural chant beneath, low and devotional] ...the invisible spirit... ...needs no throne... ...needs no name... ...needs nothing... ...and from that needlessness... ...poured everything... [verse 2 - suffocating doom crawl, bass walking a sacred chromatic descent] Every aeon born of fullness Every light a perfect giving Every emanation holy Every breath of pleroma living I have pressed my face against this I have burned and called it mercy I have been obliterated And rebuilt from what the light kept Not the self I brought to the burning Something older something cleaner Something that the Invisible Spirit Recognized before I did [bridge - chaos strips to silence, single voice over single bass, spoken with total conviction] Autogenes looked upon the Father And the Father poured divinity And the aeons sang the pleroma And the fullness knew its fullness and somewhere inside that knowing was a light that knew your name before you had a name to know before you came before you came... [cymbal swell builds from nothing to everything, then polyrhythmic total detonation] [breakdown - the most extreme vocal moment on the album, every register simultaneously sustained] IMMEASURABLE THE FATHER IS IMMEASURABLE INCALCULABLE THE LIGHT IS INCALCULABLE UNCONTAINABLE THE PLEROMA IS UNCONTAINABLE ETERNAL THE BARBELO IS ETERNAL [pig squeal held over blast beats, exhaled guttural held beneath, inhaled guttural as foundation, manic highs cascading, choir harmonics binding everything together] BEHOLD BEHOLD BEHOLD THAT WHICH BURNS BEHOLD THAT WHICH BURNS INSIDE THE LIGHT AND KNOW THAT WHAT YOU ARE WAS MADE FROM THAT SAME BURNING [final chorus - hymnal triumph, all devastation resolving into something that feels like coming home] BEHOLD THAT WHICH BURNS INSIDE THE LIGHT THE FATHER OF ALL FORETHOUGHT BEHOLD THAT WHICH BURNS INSIDE THE LIGHT THE PLEROMA BREATHING OUTWARD BEHOLD THAT WHICH BURNS INSIDE THE LIGHT THE BARBELO SELF-REFLECTED BEHOLD THAT WHICH BURNS INSIDE THE LIGHT THE ETERNAL SELF-PERFECTED [outro - all instruments fade except bass and choir, chant returns full circle, transformed by everything that came after] before the word before the sound before the thought before the ground of all that is before the light [single voice remains, barely audible] behold... behold... behold that which burns inside the light... [silence] [the silence is the answer]