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A Parting Gift

by Spires

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ALPHA-OMEGA
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ALPHA-OMEGA Spires was stealthy under my radar for a decade but now had a catch up with their fantastically ambitious discography - thanks for such a cool bundle. "A Parting Gift" is a bit more introspective than 2014's "The Whisperer" but in a good way. It's still the winning balance of Extreme Metal (Death/Doom and some Blackened peaks and pits) of the proggy variety with Prog Rock's fusion of ambient and soft acoustic Folk. Great memorable songs wrapped in a polished warm production. Epic and dark! Favorite track: The Seer.
jyosefu
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jyosefu Definitely a band that stands out amongst the crowd! Tasteful growls combined with some truly haunting harmonies accompany well timed transitions giving the listener a sense that they are on a journey with the band! Seed of Dionysus and Etchings in the Emptiness are my fav tracks! The while album is a jam though!
GWW
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GWW Quirky Progressive Technical Metal that pulls many influences. The first listen was striking and every one after, even better.
Ben & Gone
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Ben & Gone Everything I hoped for from one of my favourite bands.
If you don't order this album your music collection is incomplete. Favorite track: The Court of Clashing Skies.
Ian Gillings
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Ian Gillings Spires yet again display mastery of their craft. Complex songwriting encased in a sonically rich production, A Parting Gift will take many, many listens to peel away the layers and fully explore it's depths. Favorite track: In Black Ravines.
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  • Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album

    6 panel CD digipak, featuring beautiful artwork by Daniella Morrison, and including an 8 page lyric booklet and liner notes

    Includes unlimited streaming of A Parting Gift via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
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  • Streaming + Download

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    Purchasable with gift card

      £7 GBP  or more

     

  • Full Digital Discography

    Get all 4 Spires releases available on Bandcamp and save 10%.

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of A Parting Gift, The Whisperer, Lucid Abstractions, and Spiral of Ascension. , and , .

    Purchasable with gift card

      £19.80 GBP or more (10% OFF)

     

1.
As the fog deserts this deflated sphere The more revealed the less he perceives This synaptic blindness, this cerebral sleight of hand Is an infinite perversion of the essence of the self Within the shadows he waits Into the moonlight he stares The lightest stones are slaves to the river On a passive journey towards a blanket sea Delivered unto uniformity The art of struggle is a catalyst, yet to what end? For power in the hand? For pleasure of the flesh? Or merely to survive ourselves? The answers must reside on jagged peaks, in black ravines And so he shall return To his boulder, ever frozen in eternity If just to smash and reconstruct himself The philosopher becomes the wanderer Out of the shadows he crawls Into the moonlight he flies To where the land divides the sky To where delusion dies Beyond the footprints of days and years He recedes He may not see beyond the mountain in this lifetime Yet even aeons are made from passing days With every stumble he fells a layer of eternity Amongst the debris of failures past, he decrees… To let the land compel the sky To let delusion die To let the footprints of days and years Recur forevermore To lift the ceiling from the sky To peer through space and time One must tear down the walls that hold it out of reach So we may fly close to the ground
2.
Hark, in the distance! The axiom decreed The ancient fanfare of her sermon has begun She sings of justice, as dust that rides the mortal winds A folly to the leveller of lands Oh, the crags and valleys testify to her dominion Unfettered power, the only law unto itself So take what is yours…. With limbs unyielding, she carves the night in two Marching to the rhythm of tectonic dissonance She mocks the laws of men, as oceans mock the rain All is lost and won within the court of clashing skies “On wings of disharmony I’m risen from the mire Unshackled from my symmetry By your daggers of light” Before the temples, before the lines upon the map Capricious mother cast a shadow on her dynasty To nourish without love, to condemn without acerbity So hear no weakness, and heed no frailty The only natural law is that of tyranny “Oh non believer, your time will surely come To prostrate before the anvil Forged on iron strength of will Or wouldst though wield the hammer in my name To pass my judgement in the absence of the scales” “On wings of disharmony I’m risen from the mire Unshackled from my symmetry By your daggers of light” Yet to the morning dew The storm is just a forbear An echo through our history Like the ruins of kings Oh, my present time Is eternity’s antiquity For nothing ever lasts Nothing will endure Nothing is perennial Nothing is immutable Only death, and maybe…
3.
The Seer 11:35
Oh these temporal distractions bathed in cosmic veneer Are a fleeting reminder of the transience of ascendancy Where then, to find that which is ageless, in the spark of an idea? For knowledge without mass cannot be tethered to the earth And so the seeker of meaning encounters the seer Only eyes titled upward break the seal of quiescence In parlance with an energy, that drifts far beyond the reach of his igneous limbs With a voice drunk on sand, he beseeches to pass on his truth “Though your soul lies broken Crushed from below, and pressed against weighted skies May you reach your destination Not through toil in the bones, rather through flight of the spirit” So heal me Maker, and break me So I may cast off this carnal burden And drink away the clouds” Breath in, feel it, grasp it, see beyond the world And suddenly I am carried by dreams of transcendency Flowing through empty veins, like fire feeding off its own flames And so I climb the umbilical path to the pantheon Casting my flesh to the worms, and my soul to the sky So if I should perish here, Please let me find immortality in the finality of this body For the essence of life lies not in the rivers, the soil or the air that I breath But the flames of the gods As he calls to the abyss He is greeted with a shimmering echo As he looks down to his host He sees a sickness, a rotting animal How the unseen can portray such fantastical answers Yet the dread of a tangible death Breeds joy in the struggle of life And so my soul is falling Imprisoned down below, abandoned by spiritual winds When I reach my destination, I’ll let it swallow me So rise from your reverie Find your meaning in reflections on the water Do not betray this body, take my hand And suddenly I am heavy with nightmares of vacuity But filling a hole with that which is hollow only stretches the void And so I cry to the rocks of a faceless universe Please, nourish my waning time I submit to the future And so if you perish here, I pray you will find immortality in the finality of this body But the zephyr of life flows not from the breath of a god, But the sigh of a man who accedes to the darkness
4.
What is this, which oozes life from rotting sleep? Is this carrion flower all we ever can aspire to bequeath? A parting gift bestowed unto the worms With every breath, I suck the essence from the world With every step I may crush a life I’ll never know So take this carnal legacy Share in this inheritance of bones And sew my marrow in the soil So in the end, all that remains is that which dwells within the tapestry of others And so I gladly throw my atoms to the ravenous abyss And if I left a morsel of myself would it ripen in your tableau of design Is it mine to give, or have I simply borrowed from your infinite resources, one last time? So is this putrefied benevolence a dream? A rank mirage, a murder dressed as charity, an insincere refrain And does this even matter, this perpetual succession Always severs our intentions from the soul Do the vultures wonder why? So in the end, all that remains is that which dwells within the memory of others Yet even this is as mayflies to the storm As all in turn must satiate this ravenous abyss
5.
So if I must accord my flesh with desolation My dying will, to drink the spirit to embalm the soul The fruits of suffering are strewn across the mountains of antiquity So I must swill the grapes of revelry and dance into the grave As I journey through this fallow land, would my pleasure be a burden to the humming wind? Isn’t it better to give birth to joy, in the shadow of oblivion, if only for myself? With my given time, I choose to live with dispassionate indulgence in the heart I used to writhe with the disconnect of serving mankind, serving the gods Oh, but could it be said that this struggle within is a barrier? And so I choose to serve myself So bring the seed of Dionysus And plant a garden of obscene delights May the droughts pass with our suffering And may our harvest surpass our toil If I peer beyond my gaze, will I witness my unravelling atomic state? So bring me honey, bring me flesh, so I may banish this oblivion, if only for a time Under skies that beat a discordant cadence, I dance far from myself For I must gorge the senses for the reckoning Unto dust I donate this husk I leave nothing to entrust As this rapture soaks me from within Still I absorb the downpour to prolong the ecstasy This inflated delirium of now Is nothing to the jagged splinters of eternity So sadness is, and shall remain a virtue to the righteous And pleasure must remain the parasite that clings to higher deeds The fruits of gluttony are sewn into the fabric of our history So I must settle for the joy I can unpick with servile hands So take the seed of Dionysus And burn this garden of obscene delights Throw my senses to fiery depths Never to dictate my path again If the droughts pass with our suffering May the rains restore our tears And may our harvest never be the goal, only the consequence As this rapture leaves my broken mass Still I cling to the memory, to prolong the agony This deflated delirium of yore Lies ruptured on the jagged splinters of eternity
6.
“Why have you journeyed here? Did you dream to measure yourself against the universe? For every hopeful footstep you have laid upon me I have stamped a thousand upon you” For every path I’ve cleared, you quickly overran with thorns And so I lay my broken body upon your spiteful bed Yet through this haze of death, still your freezing moonlight glimmers Tantalising shades of meaning never found…oh well “Oh in one final act of altruism You too shall nourish my carrion Just like the bones of lowly creatures that share your grave You all share me as your tombstone For in my eyes you are one” Though I would raise a silken mausoleum To repel your intrusion It would seem the spider and the king must share their biology “Why do you assign this intent unto me With such anthropomorphic abandon If an intimate voice can be heard on the wind Is it just the stirring of internal echoes… For we are one” So this is everything But when everything is nothing Does this senseless lack of purpose Erase the consequence of change The sun cannot feel warmth towards the water Yet still gold ripples mirror my lost sentiments The glacier has no passion for the valley But lo, these wondrous carvings shape my soul For a raindrop without meaning may drown a thousand wrathful gods So in the absence of a path Embrace the liberty to forge your own arterial lines And if the worldly peaks are shrouded in your Delphic dreams Then scale the mountain in your blood So in the presence of the gods Would I have sought such treasure, buried in vast oceans of despair And though my journey may be meaningless, This odyssey became my final act of worth As it dragged me to myself As I commit my body to the ground I lament; this journey could be made without such sacrifice But were I to reclaim another lifetime Would I recognise my shadow? Would I recognise my bones?

about

UK Progressive Metal band Spires' third full length album, released September 2018. The band takes a step forward in every regard to deliver over an hour of epic progressive metal.

credits

released September 28, 2018

Paul Sadler - Vocals, lead, rhythm and acoustic guitars, keyboards

Dan White - Lead and rhythm guitars

Alex Jolley - Fretless Bass

Zac Oneil - Drums

Produced and Engineered by Paul Sadler

Mixed and Mastered by James Stephenson @ Stymphalian Productions

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about

Spires Manchester, UK

Spires are a Progressive Metal band based in Manchester, and Edinburgh,UK. Formed in 2008, the band quickly garnered attention with their 2010 debut 'Spiral of Ascension', and equally lauded follow up 'The Whisperer'. Accompanied by extensive touring throughout UK and Europe, Spires amassed an army of loyal supporters

In September 2018 they released their epic third album 'A Parting Gift'.
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