Even the album title suggests a protestant critique of civilization, built in the name of god: "O God, the aftermath". One of my favorites as well, but the christianity of their message is WAY too overplayed. There is a way to be a christian and care about something other than saving people from sin. Live through christ gets closer. These are christians, but still metal fans. Metal is the most critical musical genre of modern civilization and the horrific consequences.
The beginning of this song is key in understanding the end. the concepts are linked by more than a common track. See my comments there. But further, the opening of this track :
"strain of human limitation" is genetic, but is a reference to our biologically programmed urge to further ourselves and our immediate progeny over anything else. Even future generations whom he would send a letter to, telling of his own's mistakes.
The mistake is "riding on the wings of backward devils"--riding, getting a free ride; wings, being lifted by development; backward, like savages; devils, god doesn't want this version of civilization.
It's like people are working in their own interests, fleeing lions of starvation, only to find the bear of unintended consequences: "cut off when i saw the unseen"
his home, covered with dust and ashes, is more a metal than biblical reference--the apocalyptic landscape of earth is being referenced, sending him into it as in killing him. humiliated in terms of our hubris; insignificant, in terms of our species.
back to the bear--symbolic to many co-existant hunter-gatherers, most likely because of the ability to observe what the bear eats and get a rough sense of what you can in a new landscape. here it is dually referenced as the impact of how we choose to live and make sustenance, as opposed to the lion, the threats of day to day life without cities and farms.
Thus, the di-symbolic "bear" urges him to destroy this horror (with god on his side or not) before it destroys him.
Jeremiah 51 is a portion of the bible most frequented by Rastafarians--as it is a tyrade against "babylon," the symbol of an evil civilization. The phrase metalcore utters, "One courier follows another and messenger follows messenger," actually ends, "to show the king of babylon his city is taken at one end."
Even the album title suggests a protestant critique of civilization, built in the name of god: "O God, the aftermath". One of my favorites as well, but the christianity of their message is WAY too overplayed. There is a way to be a christian and care about something other than saving people from sin. Live through christ gets closer. These are christians, but still metal fans. Metal is the most critical musical genre of modern civilization and the horrific consequences.
The beginning of this song is key in understanding the end. the concepts are linked by more than a common track. See my comments there. But further, the opening of this track :
"strain of human limitation" is genetic, but is a reference to our biologically programmed urge to further ourselves and our immediate progeny over anything else. Even future generations whom he would send a letter to, telling of his own's mistakes.
The mistake is "riding on the wings of backward devils"--riding, getting a free ride; wings, being lifted by development; backward, like savages; devils, god doesn't want this version of civilization.
It's like people are working in their own interests, fleeing lions of starvation, only to find the bear of unintended consequences: "cut off when i saw the unseen"
his home, covered with dust and ashes, is more a metal than biblical reference--the apocalyptic landscape of earth is being referenced, sending him into it as in killing him. humiliated in terms of our hubris; insignificant, in terms of our species.
back to the bear--symbolic to many co-existant hunter-gatherers, most likely because of the ability to observe what the bear eats and get a rough sense of what you can in a new landscape. here it is dually referenced as the impact of how we choose to live and make sustenance, as opposed to the lion, the threats of day to day life without cities and farms. Thus, the di-symbolic "bear" urges him to destroy this horror (with god on his side or not) before it destroys him.
Jeremiah 51 is a portion of the bible most frequented by Rastafarians--as it is a tyrade against "babylon," the symbol of an evil civilization. The phrase metalcore utters, "One courier follows another and messenger follows messenger," actually ends, "to show the king of babylon his city is taken at one end."