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The Dissolution Orphans

by Sons of Perdition

/
1.
The shadow of the Undertaker creeps across your floor. Go lock up all your children and paint blood upon your door. These hills are filled with whispers of a man all dressed in black. At the toll of death's knell, he climbs from Hell to drag some poor soul back. The Bible speaks of angels doing service unto the LORD. The Undertaker knows no master. He drinks from any cup poured. Just as banshees wail their warnings that someone that day will die, the Undertaker states the same and I'll be goddamned if he tells a lie. Some falsely say that whippoorwills are the harbingers of death. It's the Undertaker's murder of crows that'll seize your living breath. You'll see him riding into town all dressed up like a tomb. When you see him that eve on the outbound street, you know some poor soul met their doom. The Undertaker raises no hand but all fear him just the same. His presence foretells both blood and death yet he shoulders not the blame. Like the shadow of the vulture circling blackly overhead, the Undertaker's drawn to death like a knife is drawn to red.
2.
One day these eyes will go blind like opals in the depths of an inky black mine. But until that day comes, I’ll fill up these lungs and with song lift up all who I find. One day this body will fail, but I don't live in fear of eons in Hell. Just do unto others like sisters and brothers, and goodness will surely prevail. One day this flesh will rot. My soul will survive only in others’ thoughts. And so until then, I'll pay no mind to sin or the hope that some say can be bought. One day my memory shall die. My name will be erased by the years marching by. But that ain’t so bad, hell it don’t make me sad to make room for those who come by.
3.
O LORD, woe LORD, O LORD. Make thick my blood that I won't feel the exaltation of Thy will, O LORD. Blind my eyes that I can't see thy vengeance coming down through me, O LORD. Make still my heart that I might lie and see not those You chose to die, O LORD. Smother these embers of a soul grown cold and blot my name out from Thy tome, O LORD. Then bind my soul that it will stay and with this body soon decay, O LORD. LORD let me die, LORD let me rot. LORD give me not another thought.
4.
Desert Trek 01:30
5.

I dredged her up from the bed of the river
. I thought that I'd give her a good Christian burial. But I had a thought as we came to the plot
; I'd take her home and there I would marry her. Her skin was the color of lilies in Spring. I slipped her my ring as I drew back her veil
. My thoughts headed south as I kissed her mouth
, secure in the knowledge that I'd conquered Hell. But it wasn't the warmest reception you've seen
. My senses are keen and I felt her coldness then
. Just as I feared, she must have felt weird
 to make this transition to life without sin. We spent the summer in my parents' cabin
 when one day it happened, love faded away. 
It seemed she'd decided, I couldn't deny it
, our union did reek with the stench of decay. So I laid her back down to dream in still waters
. Yet still nothing odder does trouble my sleep than her last look goodbye and the tears in her eye
 as she called my name from up out of the deep.
6.
Escape! 01:14
7.
I was cast out of Eden and driven out east. In my darkest hour turned to crime. I was sentenced to jail where I was beaten and starved. I was murdered time after time after time. Treat a man like a dog and that's what he'll become. He'll grovel today but soon his time will come. A man can be pushed, made to endure all pain. But one day like a noose, he'll reach his breaking strain. In an act of defense or defiance or rage, I savagely beat my cellmate. So they shackled my legs and threw me in a gang to clear an old graveyard to lay down some track. I felt like a beast running hurt, blind and bleeding, knowing somewhere a cliff is ahead. The bossman would watch from the shade of a tree and drive me 'til I was near dead. The boss licked his chops and said "Son, learn your place or I'll throw your bones down in the hole." Like a pot boiling over and snuffing out its fire, my rage burned as black as a coal. I'm no bossman's dog. My back won't stoop far. My home's not in heaven. I don't run from war. I say a man can be pushed but when there's nothing left at stake, sooner or later he'll break. My eyes filled with blood so I picked up a jawbone and I cleaved his fat head clean in two. He fell into the dust as I spat on his face. "Brother, the same goes for you."
8.
Train Song 01:48
There’s a train named Salvation that’s headed to the station, or so goes the preacherman’s book. But you can wait all the day and toil your life away for redemption you’d buy from a crook. ‘Cause selling hope’s the preacher’s job and he’ll rile up his mob if you threaten to expose his hollow lies. They’ll drown your body in a lake or burn your carcass at the stake. Just ask any martyr who’s tried. I’m heading far away and I won’t be back this way until that phony train returns to this old town. The preacherman has made you blind. That preacher can kiss my behind until that empty train Salvation comes around.
9.
The wind blew cold right through me as I headed through the wastes. The venom coiled around my heart and tightened as I quickened pace. Cold flames danced upon the sands. I spied a herd of camels. The muffled drones of Satan's choir called from buried angels. The stars in Heaven marked me. They know my name in Hell. I swear I killed a drifter then whose body vanished where it fell. The air was rank with copper or blood from shuttered mines. A moldy skull stared from a ditch, its fate foretelling mine. I found an empty mining town half-swallowed by the earth. Bleached faces stared from windows, a sinkhole for a church. To avoid the fate of Korah, I headed east to Page. Those voices swelled into a din of suffering and rage.
10.
Desert Wind 02:30
11.
See that girl weeping silent in her cold empty home? Watch her pretty flesh wither and drop from the bone. Now smell the tears of that boy as they paint his poor face. His heart stumbles and it falters with complete lack of grace. Hear the man cursing softly as he dies in his bed, in the clutches of the cancer that blooms in his head. And feel the soul of that lady get sucked through the gates though her body treads onward down a path that she hates. Now taste the blood on the teeth of the only one you love. Well the preacher on Monday, like the farmer on Sunday, and the shepherd out some other day know they ain't exempt, so don't waste time with your tears because it's worse than you fear. You gotta get right outta town before your own day gets here. Now sow those seeds in that ground that grows so fallow and cold. You know they'll never be found. I say they'll only grow mold, 'cause there ain't gonna be no big harvest this year. I tell you, time to settle debts, it is drawing so near.
12.
I went with my baby on out in the woods. I lasted much longer than I thought I could, but push came to shove and so went my dove, flapping and squawking her message of love. Now my girl found a new peace, just six feet away and I pray to Lord God, to please let her stay. She fell down the crevice and dashed out her brains. Her insides went outside her poor little frame. Her wetstuffs went dry like the spark in her eye and I knew where I stood forever dead she would lie. Now my girl found a new peace, just six feet away and I pray to Lord God, to please let her stay. She said "Don't leave no flowers, there upon my grave, 'cause I'm coming home love, and there will I stay." So I gathered some flowers and built up a cairn. I said a few words and got outta there, for in the woods there were sounds and I thought that I's found, but the noises were vultures that lit on her mound. That night in our bedroom came a knock on the door and the shuffling of cold feet on our earthen floor. I reached under the mattress for my hunting knife when in lurched my true love, dear departed wife.
13.
Flambe 01:14
14.
The church in the desert, like a purse stuffed with gold, is surrounded by the hungry, the infirm, and old. And though they make a show of sweeping scraps from their table, they stick it to the poor every chance that they're able. There's lenders in the temple; jackals in the house of God. So me and this drifter broke in there for funds. We made out with the coffers as the clergy sat stunned. I said, "This mansion was built on the backs of the poor, so just pray for our souls as you lie on the floor." The priest pulled a pistol as we ran out the door. I felt a bullet rip through me and I fell to the floor. My partner stopped to help and was shot several times. The money fell in the pool of blood, brains and grime. The priest hit his knees like a man meant to pray. His vestments in gore, his beady eyes glazed. But he wasn't giving last rites to my friend growing cold. The cops swarmed around me as he clawed for his gold. Flip their tables, burn their notes, let's string 'em up and slit their throats.
15.
Nowhere 05:57
Looking in for something new. All the things that I’ve been through. Face against the window screen. Better you than me. There’s nothing here that isn’t strange. I break my neck to see the change. Scanning blue and empty skies. It’s nowhere. Sleeping under broken glass; when memories come, they come too fast. My brain is backwards in its skull. Rhyme and reason null. There’s nothing here makes any sense. I try so hard to grasp events. I hang my head and grind my teeth. I’m nowhere. Waking under blinding light. Eternal day; it’s never night. I hear my life, its ins and outs. I have my doubts. There’s nothing here inside my head but brains and blood, gray and red. I sink back into dreamless sleep, to nowhere. Get off my back and let me breathe. No words will pass between these teeth. Falling back through space and time to a place that’s mine. There’s nothing here but broken glass. Smoking wreckage gone too fast. I’m leaving now to find my peace. It’s nowhere.
16.
17.
In a red room lined with velvet curtains, a man sits with his brother in the heat and in the fire. In a red room, words are whispered secrets, insects among the thickets, all consumed by the fire. In a red room looked upon by Watchers, in the apron of a butcher, the man steps into the fire. In a red room, a man devours his brother. Nevermore without the other, he exits through the fire.

about

"The Dissolution Orphans" chronicles the twelve year creation of Sons of Perdition's Dissolution Trilogy. The trilogy began with 2007’s hellfire-and-brimstone-spewing The Kingdom is on Fire, continued with 2010’s bleak Psalms for the Spiritually Dead, and reached its nihilistic conclusion with 2013's Trinity, which No Depression called "an album that is to fringe music what Arthur Rimbaud’s “Season in Hell” is to classic literature and what William Butler Yeats’ “The Second Coming” is to poetics."

"The Dissolution Orphans" isn't an album in its own right. It's a history and a chance for the listener to trepan the skull of Zebulon Whatley and peer at the worms writhing within. This is a notebook, bound in flesh and penned in blood. The quality of the recordings varies greatly since they were never intended for public consumption. There are audio issues with some of the oldest recordings. Consider these hisses and pops the punctuation in this hellish volume.

With the exception of Simon Broke's double bass on "The Shadow of the Undertaker", everything here is written and performed by Zebulon Whatley.

credits

released March 21, 2014

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Sons of Perdition Glasgow, UK

Sons of Perdition make weird, dark music. Their seventh release, Heathen Hof, is available May 1, 2022.

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