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Trinity

by Sons of Perdition

/
1.
Fallout 05:02
Angels of Heaven, fall! Fall! The Fool of eleven, fall! Fall! Plummeting devils, fall! Fall! Through the Kingdom’s nine levels, fall! Fall! Twenty-two is the crown that awaits on the ground. Fall! Fall! The Philosopher’s Stone shall hang flesh on the bones. Fall! Fall! He is become death, destroyer of worlds. Embers in air, fall! Fall! Smoldering hair, fall! Fall! Comets on fire, fall! Fall! The heavenly choir, fall! Fall! The cup runneth dry. Fall! Fall! The sun from the sky, fall! Fall! The stars impermanent, fall! Fall! God from His firmament, fall! Fall! The serpent encircles and swallows its tail.
2.
Exile 03:34
I was spat cold and blameless into endless white light, screaming and blood-soaked like a murder at night. Born into creation like a maggot in meat, I washed up in Sacramento, where for a while life was sweet. They say that I broke the law but I’ve never done wrong, so I fled like a lover from a bitter torch song. I struck out toward the wastes, knowing I’d never return. The cops barred my passage with the fire of their guns. I was adrift in a sea of ancient green pines. Unshaped and unguided like ore in a mine. I fell in with a drifter from up in Alaska. We wandered out east through the Sierra Nevadas.
3.
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.
4.
At the Amargosa River, on the bank we sat down. Yeah, we wept as we talked of forsaking our town. I hung my guitar in the boughs of a tree and cried awhile more as I remembered thee. The boss wants a song, so he shouts to the gang. He laughs as we strike up a rhythm with chains. But how can we sing the LORD's song in this land? If I forget thee, Sacramento, strike this harp from my hand. If I don't recall that city as my greatest joy, the songs of my father on my tongue will cloy. The bossman don't care about my shackle sores. He laughs again and orders us to sing a bit more. When I'm free I swear I'll burn this place to the ground. I'll ride through its streets and gun all its folks down. O Daughter of Babylon, I'll soon pay you back. The blood of your children will paint your streets black. Rejoicing I'll drink from those rivers of gore as I dance to the wails of the great Scarlet Whore.
5.
Well I was cast out of Sacto 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 and work off my hate. 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 bone 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."
6.
The Serpent 04:58
After breaking my chains and the skull of a man, I made like a rabbit and ran. I washed up in the fang of Nevada where I went on the lam. The sky was a mirror, the sand was a blade. I found work in an orchard way down in a glade. A great ouroboros burns in the sky: an eye, lidless and bloodless and cold. And as above, so below. Life begets death begets life in an endless tableau. From the villages and farms and Rez came the men, dirty and poor and thin. I shed my past like a skin and left it out west. I washed off my sins. I reached for an apple and suffered a bite. My senses consumed by the roar and the light. The serpent vanished in the shadows for good. I fell where I stood. A Hualapai spoke of a man named Coyote; a trickster in the woods. The others tried to quiet him but seeing no choice, they drug me from camp singing in a low voice.
7.
A squalid shack huddled in a copse of withered trees. I awoke in its belly, on a bed of dead leaves. Coyote leered beastly from the foot of the bed. One eye glowed like a pearl from the ruin of his head. Poison’s in everything. Nothing’s without poison. “I’ve prayed and I’ve sang for four days and four nights to cleanse your red blood from that poisonous bite. I’ve bought you some time, but another year you won’t see. Head east and make haste to the town of Trinity. A great healer roams the deserts there. Go find him if you will. He holds the spring to boundless life, and he’ll sell you your fill.” Coyote howled with laughter and his white eye bulged and grew. “My medicine has placed you on a path to something new.” The other men were gone, as was the sun from in the sky. I was alone with the old shaman with his blind and ghostly eye. I took my leave and breathed deeply of inky, endless night. The stars hung from the heavens with a cold, infernal light.
8.
The wind blew cold right through me as I headed through the wastes. 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. It was staved in like a coffin so I headed east to Page. Spectral voices joined that din of suffering and rage.
9.
Song of Ruin 03:37
I rode by night-train down to Cañon Diablo to work on the rails and lay low for a while, but never a town here on God's holy earth did drink itself drunk on such venom and bile. I made my swiftly to a bar down on Hell Street. Above it, a broken sign read "Road to Ruin". A couple of outlaws flew out into daylight, their whiskey undrunk, left behind in the gloom. Tell Mary's harlots to stop what they're doing and gather around to sing this song of ruin. They at once were surrounded by dozens of cowboys whose hands were just itching at their holstered heat. Then all in the blink of a milky crow's eyeball, that onslaught of guns thundered Hell in the street. So they planted those corpses in sands red as bull's blood where they stiffened and bloated and bled out their wounds. Then those drunk, old cowboys rode down there with shovels, disinterring those outlaws from their cruel, arid tombs. Tell all those bandits to quit what they're doing and gather around to hear this song of ruin. "I just can't allow that a man would buy whiskey and not live to drink it," said a man like a goat. "We'll give 'em what's theirs, boys, so take up that bottle!" Then I helped them pour liquor down their slackened throats. We stood there in silence, me and that band of cowboys, as the sun climbed grotesquely like a carrion fly. That star found us sober so we left through the canyons, leaving two piles of rocks where those cold bodies lie. Tell all those cowboys to think what they're doing and ponder the sorrow in this song of ruin.
10.
I made my way toward Show Low through a desert dry as bone. I grew sicker from my wounds as they festered in the burning sun. Consumed by pangs of hunger, I sought shelter in a cave while the poison in my blood snaked its way into my fevered brain. Blood unto wine, wine turns to piss. Flesh unto bread, bread turns to ash. Gold unto lead, lead into stone. Skin decays to dust, the grave becomes a throne. Without a dime or a bite of food, desperation turned to panic, so when a hunter found my den, he found a beast that had gone manic. I brained him with my rifle butt, then took my knife and slit. I dressed his body where it lay, then roasted it upon a spit.
11.
The grizzled hunter was my first. Flesh from yellow bones was flayed. That grim repast did slake my thirst, but only for a day. I slunk out at nights just like a wraith and fell upon the camps. Through the power of their prayers and faith, their fat did light my lamps. I’m falling farther down the shaft. I know I’m never coming back. I slipped into darkness and laughed. Still farther, farther down the shaft. Their bones discarded down a pit, this hunter sought no trophies. I wallowed in my filth and shit, rags and gasoline. Voices called up from the depths; ghosts desperate for revenge. They chilled my blood and seized my breath as the cave filled up with their cold stench. They were calling up from down the shaft, skulking corpses first and last. Their skin was flayed, skulls were smashed, climbing up from down the shaft. I grabbed some clothes from my last meal and escaped down a crawlway. What I thought were angry spirits was just a posse out to slay me. I heard them break into my den. They were overcome completely. Their loved ones’ meat and heads and feet were stacked or hanging neatly. Now I’m crawling farther down the shaft. There isn’t any turning back. I stop to drop a burning match before I’m swallowed by the black.
12.
Smoke rose high behind me. To Magdalena I walked. I found a caravan of Okies, so I stopped and there we talked. They were headed whence I came, they said with dirt-caked smiles. Their crops were dead, their farms forsaken, and they’d wandered many miles. I offered up a little food but they kindly declined. Having suffered many hardships, their hunger they just didn’t mind. They told me I looked sick. They asked me to lie down. They offered me some medicine, which I greedily choked down. Strangers in the desert, burdened down by strife. Strangers in the desert, you can trust them with your life. They want to help you out. They want you to feel better. They’ll do everything they can for you, right down to the letter. They bowed their heads to pray for me and sang a bitter hymn. I suspected I’d been tricked as my vision throbbed and dimmed. My poisoned blood curdled as I saw through their disguise. A thousand eyes burned through me as they buzzed about like flies. “Why do I deserve this?” I cried out to the wastes. “Was I born merely to suffer until my grave I face?” The world was blotted out by light as I fell to my knees. I heard them buzz and swarm about, deaf to all my desperate pleas. Strangers in the desert, burdened down by strife. Strangers in the desert, you can trust them with your life. They want to help you out. They want you to feel well. They want to lay their eggs underneath your skin and watch you bloat and swell. I woke up under scorching sun, blood crusted on my hands. Destitute and all alone, abandoned in this barren land. The venom surged behind my eyes as I lay there and wept. I felt my life sink in the sands so I gave up and slept.
13.
Revelations 05:14
With a red rock for a pillow, I lay down as to die. Blood poured thickly through my veins, my fever burning high. I suffered fitful visions, all steeped in blood and hate. They burned themselves on my mind’s eye. I was helpless to escape. I spied a spectral ladder tying earth to Heaven. The spirits of those whom I had wronged climbed in groups of seven. They decried my crimes aloud in accusing ghostly yells. Some made their way up to the top, while others slipped and fell. Demons swarmed like insects from the corpus of the earth. Their claws outstretched and menacing, limbs dragging in the dirt. The earth was torn asunder in a glowing, gaping maw that swallowed those who lost their grip and held all whom should fall. The ground unleashed its horrors; exhalations from a tomb. The choirs of Hell both rose and throbbed, wailing psalms of doom. My soul was rent and boiled dry at the screaming of the damned. I swore I’d never find that healer as I was swallowed by the sands.
14.
The Leper 03:31
Louder and louder shook the black gates of Hell. I woke with a start, like a drunk in a cell. The chewing of wheels on the hot sandy ground came to a stop as my body was found. One must suffer from absolute blindness to freely pour the milk of human kindness. A malformed albino laid me in a seat. His face swelled with tumors, his skin like rank meat. He drove in silence as I lay in the back. Socorro was waiting down a long, dusty track. He fed me and clothed me and I slept for a day. I woke before dawn without much to say. My head started reeling and I felt cold and sick, so I found where he was sleeping and I beat him with a brick. I was hard up for cash so I looted his shack, stuffing my pockets as he wept on his back. My visions had shown me who I was to see: a healer named Maycomb out in Trinity.
15.
Zero Point 07:15
I washed up in Trinity, my pulse as slow as sand. Corrupted by the venom of the serpent’s poison gland. The town was stripped of all but bones. The houses leaned obscenely. Down the road a coyote loped, its milky eye fixed on me. I saw a woman, dead and gray, skin peeled from her cold face. Her eyes were eaten by the birds, black sockets stared out into space. To her left there sat a man as vacant as the town. The sun had boiled his spongy brains; a broken window for his crown. This is because that is. I clawed my way up to the pair, demanding what I sought. He turned upon me sun-bleached eyes that promised respite could be bought. I gave him everything I owned and all I’d worked to steal to purge the toxin from my veins and have my body healed. He took the bottle from the corpse and handed it to me. Map-like veins and swollen clouds were all that I could see. I drank that rank elixir in one gagging, wretched gulp. It congealed inside my sickly frame, turning bile to pulp. This is because that is. I realized I’d been deceived by empty lies and promises. His entire legend built on lies; through fools he came to prominence. My journey a fool’s errand, so I shot him through his eye. I shook his brains out from his head and hung his body on a pine. I set fire to all around me as I staggered out of town. The coyote ran through fire and smoke, low upon the ground. A ring upon the woman’s finger lit up like the sun. As the coyote swallowed up her hand, Ragnarök was won. This is not because that is not. Hopeless, crazed, and dispossessed, I walked out in the desert. My eyes swam in the heavens while my feet slept in the dirt. With no food, no water and no cure, I prayed for death to find me. The sun spun round and swelled. I was sure that it would blind me. I felt my flesh fall off its bones, my soul evaporate. My self turned into something else; supernal change of state. That foul star absorbed my being until we became as one, lifted into fetid skies, shedding my old form. This ceases to be because that ceases to be.
16.
Ascension 03:02
Pillar of flame, rise! Rise! God of no name, rise! Rise! Shadows burned into walls, rise! Rise! An end to it all, rise! Rise! Chaos returns. Rise! Rise! All lessons unlearned. Rise! Rise! Tabula rasa voids the sins of the Father. Rise! Rise! The heavens are gutted, the curtain thrown wide. The moon to the east, rise! Rise! The Magician unleashed, rise! Rise! All hope and all doom, rise! Rise! The dead from their tombs, rise! Rise! The Master takes to the throne, rise! Rise! Flesh is seared off the bone. Rise! Rise! A new King is crowned. Rise! Rise! The palace burns to the ground. Rise! Rise! The palimpsest scraped and made ready again.

about

Trinity concludes Sons of Perdition's Dissolution Trilogy, which began with 2007’s The Kingdom is on Fire and continued with 2010’s Psalms for the Spiritually Dead. Trinity tells the story of a fool’s hellish journey through the blood-soaked deserts of the American Southwest through religious, occult, and alchemical allusions.

credits

released November 12, 2013

All words, music and artwork by Zebulon Whatley (BMI) 2009-2013, except all bass composed by Simon Brach, music for “The Serpent” composed by Seth Fleming and Zebulon Whatley, piano on “Zero Point” composed by Lacy Rose, tarot artwork by Christoph Mueller. Mastered by Andrew Mitchell, Audio Bay Mastering, Rockford, MI.

Sons of Perdition:
Zebulon Whatley - Voice, acoustic/lap steel/electric guitar, banjo, melodica, ukelele, piano, keyboard, percussion, singing bowl, etc.
Simon Brach - All double bass

Special Guests:
Victoria Athmann - All violin and viola
Peter Murphy - Backing vox on “Ascension”
Sophie Nadaud - Backing vox on “Profane the Night”
Sophia Cacciola - Backing vox on “Song of Ruin”
Lacy Rose - Piano on “Zero Point”

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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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