Primordial - The Gathering Wilderness
Original Version Digipack Version Picture LP Version 1. The golden spiral 8:03 1. The golden spiral 8:03 1. The golden spiral 8:03 2. The gathering wilderness 9:13 2. The gathering wilderness 9:13 2. The gathering wilderness 9:13 3. The song of the tomb 7:56 3. The song of the tomb 7:56 3. The song of the tomb 7:56 4. End of all times (martyrs fire) 7:42 4. End of all times (martyrs fire) 7:42 4. End of all times (martyrs fire) 7:42 5. The coffin ships 9:58 5. The coffin ships 9:58 5. The coffin ships 9:58 6. Tragedy's birth 8:31 6. Tragedy's birth 8:31 6. Tragedy's birth 8:31 7. Cities carved in stone 8:07 7. Cities carved in stone 8:07 7. Cities carved in stone 8:07 --- Bonus DVD --- 1. The making of The Gathering Wilderness 20:08 total time 59:30 total time 1:19:38 total time 59:30
The Golden Spiral One day I stood with my back to the wind And the rain fell down Raised my fist to the cobalt sky And called to the Gods ...Where are you? I stood in the stream with cold clear water Rushing around me Cold stone underfoot And called again to the Gods ...Where are you? I sat in the forest clearing Surrounded by wood and leaf A Raven watched my every move I could feel my heartbeat Thundering Deep within my veins I set foot on foreign land Held my brothers and sisters to me And saw the same questions in them Yet when I clasped their hands I felt their Blood beneath mine I had found my answer [Lyrics: A.A. Nemtheanga] [Music: MacUilliam and Primordial] ["The pantheon of old Gods in any language are man's natural relation to the elements. These Gods are human in every respect. The concept of the neverending Spiral is what binds us. We are bound by Blood and the Legacy of these Gods. This deep primal, animalistic connection and question binds us together..."] The Gathering Wilderness You say you know me I'm the Poison in your veins My Faith is not welcome here I Break the young and the cold There is a Darkness here You cannot imagine you cannot fathom It speaks to me in tongues Can you hear it? I've built my tower of song From words as bitter splintered bone Gnarled and wretched, spiteful and harsh I've cursed the vermin, the vermin of the earth I've wished pestilence upon the foul and weak Not just men, but woman and children too With a rusted blade across their throats I've played the tyrant's hand Against the rhyme and reason of fools I've prayed to sickly children In their blackened cities of Filth You say you know me? Do you? I'm the poison in your veins My Faith it is not welcome here The Wilderness is Gathering all its Children in... [Lyrics: A.A. Nemtheanga] [Music: MacAmlaigh and Primordial] ["The ghosts of our pasts are gathered at the borders of every nation waiting to reign a terrible wrath upon us. Men's Hearts are turning. Darker and darker as every day passes. Old Europe is changing, the world is changing. The Wilderness is Gathering its children in, there is terrible maelstrom Gathering. Can you see it? Do you know it? Where shall you stand."] The Song Of The Tomb From the north to the south From the east to the west All that waits for me is the grave I have been where my brothers lay fallen And my kind are as slaves Bloodied yet unbowed I sing a song of the tomb Of the cold and heathen earth Of the Gods that await me I raise a glass in your name For when the sun rise again To our deaths like condemned men This is the twilight of the ages And no man shall stand I sing a song of the tomb Of the cold and heathen earth With virgin voice to poisoned womb I call to the shadowed kind To men of myth, etched in stone Whose songs are heard no more The women of the barren lands This is your time [Lyrics: A.A. Nemtheanga] [Music: MacUilliam and Primordial] ["Our myths are steeped in blood and tragedy and the grim acceptance of fate. The difference between these myths and the lessons they teach us and the modern day are virtually non existant. A man's life, decided by the warmongers, by the blade of a knife, a bullet from a gun or a bomb is no different from the warmongers and warriors of legend. We write our own legends today, here and now, yet always with blood."] End Of All Times (The Martyr's Fire) Is this all I've been left Broken oaths and betrayals The empty words and dead rhetoric Of my sold and broken culture And I said once before That time heals nothing I feel like a wounded animal In the dying throes I am near to death Yet with teeth bared Heels dug in the dirt And the graves rabid stare Waiting for one last struggle If I have one (desire) Mark my words And gather your thoughts Well these might be my last days Because I am about to eclipse my sun Collapse my star Snuff out my flame And reach into the void Well these might well be my last days But maybe, just maybe I'll take you down with me [Lyrics: A.A. Nemtheanga] [Music: MacUilliam, O'Floinn and Primordial] ["These are desperate times, the odds are stacked against us, surely the day will come when the wolf is let loose? When he wakes from his slumber and awakes the beast in man, and he shatters the bonds that bind him and makes one last stand... for all times."] The Coffin Ships Young hearts born with grief Shall pay the penalty of truth A season of stolen youth Shall teach old hearts to break It feels like I've been here before Here to where the animals lay down to die So we stood alone on a distant store Our broken spirits in rags and tatters Nerve and muscle, heart and brains Lost to Ireland, lost in vain Pause and you can almost hear The sounds echo down through the ages The creak of the burial cart Here in humiliation and sorrow Not mixed with indignation One is driven to exclaim Oh god, that bread should be so dear And human flesh so cheap[*] Young hearts are born with such grief We have paid the penalty of truth A season of our stolen youth Shall teach our hearts to break Lyrics: A.A. Nemtheanga Music: MacUilliam and Primordial [*Taken from a memorial to the dead at a mass grave in Skibereen, Co. Cork] ["Between the years 1845 and 1849 a famine ravaged Ireland and over 3 million people were lost to a combination of starvation and emigration I said once before the history of my land is a litany of tragedy and blood, these four years represent possibly the greatest tragedy the country has endured. It still hangs over Ireland and set the tone for Irish people to leave Ireland shores to the present day. The coffin ships themselves were what the ships that set sail for America in search of a new and better life were called. It's with this song we honour the memory of this great tragedy and those poor souls who lost their lives."] Tragedy's Birth The crippled oracle breathes his lungs like grit His blackened hands, like maps of ungodly lands Skin as leather, burnt by the sun This world is not for him, this world is not for You nor I When the Gods were young the burden was less It was not grief and it was not fear Who cast the shadow upon our age? Who has crippled the young and blinded their eyes? He counts the hours, days and awful years To when the children stare into the sun The mountains crumble to the sea And our civilisations turn to dust They are turned to dust So slumber watcher, till the spheres Have turned ten and twenty thousand years The crippled oracle breathes, his lungs like grit This world is not for him, this world is not for You nor I... [Lyrics: A.A. Nemtheanga] [Music: O'Floin, MacUilliam and Primordial] ["A black macabre dream of vast nightmare continents, shifting, heaving and seething, before the dawn of man."] Cities Carved In Stone I lost my self, in those streets A passenger of foreign tongue The sun sets, in the same language And rises just the same There was no grand design To get to this point No absolutes, no given truths We were not carved in stone She sent the sun to heal me She sent the moon to guide me And when the words failed me So she lay beside me Sometimes I get to thinking of the past When I've had more than a drink or two Who knows where the days go And would you ever want them back [Lyrics: A.A. Nemtheanga] [Music: MacUilliam and Primordial] ["That feeling when you are in another city, another town, strange and new streets and you realise you are wholly alone. Not one person around you knows you and no one knows where you stand in this world. It is these moments travelling that make me think of the past more than ever..."] Lyrics in plain text format