back to
Relapse Records
We’ve updated our Terms of Use to reflect our new entity name and address. You can review the changes here.
We’ve updated our Terms of Use. You can review the changes here.

The Mother of Virtues

by Pyrrhon

/
  • Streaming + Download

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

      $10 USD  or more

     

  • Buy Pyrrhon CDs, LPs & T-Shirts via Relapse Records

1.
There are no crowds out on the streets No neon lights, no beautiful people Just vacant windows staring down At the heaps of ash and charred rags And the avenues yawn between Ruins that spike like polygraphs At the half-remembered husks In the cordwood-bundled clouds Why won’t you fucking listen to me? I’m so close to finding the right words Look past the sores and the slurring tongue And take my reality into your heart You think I’m pathetic But the truth is mine, not yours Because when they cut me open I saw the future coiled up inside
2.
White Flag 09:42
It’s amazing what you can give up If you just want to survive You’ll discard cherished convictions And spread yourself wide for your ravagers When they approach to defile you Voyeurs hiding behind the skyline Peer down at me, but I try to ignore them They track me through the aisles larded with treasure And mock me at night when I’m begging for silence Don’t want to be held responsible You can take whatever you want from me Just make sure I don’t notice You can take whatever you want from me And the waltzes play on in halls of gold While the misfortunates slop back and forth Between the flophouses, clinics and prisons Until their weight carves ruts in the earth Don’t want to be held responsible You can take whatever you want from me Just make sure it doesn’t hurt You can take whatever you want from me This is the world we’ve made for ourselves But our acid abstentions Will dissolve the limestone beneath us And when the sinkhole opens up We won’t deserve to be pulled out It’s amazing what you can give up
3.
Reality’s wilting around me Words turn to liquid And run from of the pages of books My dreams are all stock footage Skipping and twitching, stuck on repeat And the official channels are all going silent No more vapid assurances No alarms, no surprises Just colorless light and featureless sound Blemishing everything Reality is wilting around me And my wetware is drying up So I squeeze myself into wires And course through the copper to The cone of the speaker And ride a shudder through the air Until I slide into your head Where I cut through the wax And caress the little bones Oh, I’m coming close now I gently part the tiny hairs And plant a serrated shard Between the dusky folds within A stowaway from a wilted world
4.
Balkanized 04:46
I’m standing on the platform And there’s a pile of trash bags Swollen with former objects of desire Stripped of office, like corrupted priests In black plastic vestments And cast out to vagrancy So now they wait with me Twitching with the palsy Of the rats in their guts That shriek as the train approaches To take me home There’s a negative copy of me In a bus station on a dusty plain A thousand miles away And one day we’ll meet Swept up by different flags We’ll lock eyes through gunsights And I wonder which one of us Will die beneath the other’s knives And I hope it will be him It’s not personal But I’ll rip your throat out if I have to I’ll tear your guts out if I’m asked to You’ll rip my throat out if you have to You’ll tear my guts out if you’re asked to It’s nothing personal Because we’re both the same Lemmings rushing away from a mirror And towards a cliff
5.
The world without is thin and strange Like the last moments in a dream Of lying afloat on a vast, lightless sea Where vague premonitions loom up from the deep To rasp at the half-truths that buoy your weight ‘Til your mind is dissolved by the brightness of day How can you stand the confusion? How will you bear the pain? Breathe.
6.
Sometimes I stare for too long into the sun Until my vision grows grainy with pixels I can feel the dials in my forebrain turn Someone’s in there, tampering with the controls Each new day sweeps the boundaries away And I’m left to redefine Where the machines end and my mind begins anew In this place The background chatter is digitally remastered And thousands of lenses bend the light Until riddles are all I can see Each new day sweeps the boundaries away And I’m left to wonder why I should trust anything that I hear, see or think anymore They’ve filtered and vetted the input I’m getting And cross-referenced it with the finest algorithms Ensuring that all content will seamlessly sync With the receivers they’ve built in my brain That’s the just the way that we do things these days And it’s improving at an exponential rate They’ve made my skull an echo chamber It clangs with thoughts they’ve designed There’s no room for me in here anymore Time to shut up and accept it
7.
I met with the white coats again today They fed me another optimistic prognosis And pills that chip away at my strength Even as they keep me alive Count me among the enlightened ones Who know that they’ve been cursed I’ll have decades to fight a losing battle And to bleed from invisible wounds They tell me my body is beautiful But my innards turn sour as the years tick by It’s a glorious cage with luscious fetters That will bind me until I die And dogs stalk me in the street I can feel their eyes raking my back And dripping down my thighs Their teeth seek the targets That grow like moles on my skin Whose light shines through my clothes They can’t be hidden away They tell me my body is fertile And that each pore bursts with the gift of life But it’s a glorious cage with luscious fetters That will bind me until I die I’m trying hard not to feel ungrateful But it can really get you down, man Being locked in forever with a weakness That fate bestowed with a smile And all of these gifts are good for nothing But God keeps giving me more Schedules to keep and payments to make Blessed art thou, my daughter I met with the white coats again today They spoke to me in soothing tones As they repaired the walls of my cell: “The boon of beauty comes with a price And it is your duty to pay it Day by day, day by day”
8.
The cold darts in like a scalpel And cuts away the scraps of sleep It exploits my weaknesses ‘Til cracks creak wide in my old skin Shivers flow down my body The muscles jerk and snap Livid flags in February wind The lightbulbs gutter as I roam These frigid, bloodless halls Where the enzymes drip down slow And despairing villi beg for my warm breath Silence rests a velvet hand On all the starved pests and empty beds And the time draws near for me To leave this place behind
9.
The first time it was an accident We cursed ourselves for months But its liquid eyes and little fists Smothered our principled objections We were doing what our bodies told us We were vassals to our lust It got easier every time We were praised and congratulated Fecundity is the mother of virtues We didn’t feel bad about it anymore We were doing what our bodies told us We were vassals to our lust We did it again and again The spirit is willing And oh, how the flesh is willing We’ll thrust ourselves into the future Again and again and again And the birthing cries will bury The echoes of the old koan: Limitless flesh, limited means It is right and good to drown the earth in seed It’s what we were put here to do And by God if we aren’t good at it O, rejoice! For soon the world will burst with wombs The sun will claw for the trees in vain And an ocean of bones will creak below

about

New York City's progressive death metal newcomers PYRRHON (pronounced peer-on) emerge from the urban decay with a nightmarish offering of cerebral, extreme metal. The Mother of Virtues is a mind bending merger of clanging death metal, surreal psychedelia, dark jazz rhythms and delirious storytelling. Recorded with Ryan Jones (Today is the Day, Mutilation Rites) and mastered by Colin Marston (Gorguts, Krallice), The Mother of Virtues takes the listener on a harrowing journey into the darkest corners of musical extremity.

credits

released April 1, 2014

Relapse Records
relapserecords.bandcamp.com
www.relapse.com

license

all rights reserved

tags

about

Pyrrhon New York, New York

"Outré as they get, everything Pyrrhon do emanates from an obsidian death metal core - just that this music is that much more expressive, its impact that much more disquieting than almost anything else in the genre."
-Decibel

contact / help

Contact Pyrrhon

Streaming and
Download help

Redeem code

Report this album or account

If you like Pyrrhon, you may also like: