October music: Everything Beyond These Walls Has Been Razed by Reigns

Turning now to Reigns' third album The House on the Causeway, which is described thusly:

Between Black Ven and Golden Cap, a slim, man-made promontory of granite cobbles extends unnecessarily a half-mile out into the English Channel. Nothing of note lies at its end or at any point along its length. This apparent futility has ensured that the causeway has, over the years, been excluded from all but the most painstaking of cartography. Even to the naked eye it seems to elude detection for the almost perpetual gathering of fog that seems to hover over its entire reach, and its brief moments out from under this oppressive vapour are instantly curtailed by the ravening attentions of the tides. Only the briefest window of opportunity arises to explore this altogether pointless finger of slimed and stinking rock.

It was during one of these rare moments that Reigns Operatives A & B came to record a perplexing audio phenomenon. It is said that the fog that so vigorously clings to the causeway has an inexplicable irregularity: that when it reaches a certain density, purportedly when light can no longer penetrate it, it emits a high pitched ringing similar to the onset of tinnitus. Apparently, it is this ringing that generates in the listener a temporary but profound befuddlement of the senses that has caused many an excursionist to wade, disorientated, into the sea.

Unfortunately, despite an abundance of fog, the Operatives heard nothing but the slow lapping of the glutinous, clotting water. Furthermore, due to the fog's impenetrability and their vehicle's inability to negotiate the cobbles, the Operatives tarried too long and were roughly ushered by the tide to the causeway's furthest point.

Stranded upon a raised and wooded tumulus they found themselves face to face with a most unexpected sight: a house; a house that had most assuredly not been visible from land. The house was unlocked and uninhabited, but in no way abandoned for its chambers were in a state of high expectancy, as if visitors had been, for a prolonged and industrious period, eagerly awaited. The Operatives, for want of anything better to do, entered the house and, for reasons that still seem to elude them, moved from room to room, taking photographs and recording the strange resonations that seemed to emanate from the walls.

They left the house almost two days later in a state of high distress and with the recordings you now have before you.

It was only as they made their way back to the mainland and the house was out of sight that they were at last aware of an insistent high pitched ringing...

This one actually seems to have a video which, according to the description on YouTube was "illustrated in pen and ink by Phlegm Comics and produced by Medlo." I think they did some really good work here. First, the video, followed immediately beneath by the lyrics.



Remember the school
The swinging tyre over the pool
Your den in the glade
The arbour where you used to play.

Remember the park
The bandstand lit up in the dark
The old carousel
All burning in hell.

You cross the threshold the poison will take hold
Boil your bones to a silvery stream.
There’s nothing out there but mud and a nightmare,
Picked over bodies gone gleaming and green.
The water is stagnant, the land is a magnet
For everything vile, crawling, profane.
I am your father so heed what I tell you:
Everything beyond these walls has been razed.

The shale and the shell
The sails rolling over the swell
The rowboats and tugs
All turned to dust.

You leave this attic you’ll break up like static
Particles wheeling up in the air.
There’ll be nothing left there but mud and a nightmare,
Your burning ribbon you wore in your hair.
Your friends and your teachers, the railway sleepers,
The vines and the creatures: all up in flames.
I am your father. Please don’t go out there.
Everything beyond these walls has been razed.

Some wonderful imagery there. I especially like the part about how the poison will "boil your bones to a silvery stream" as well as the land being "a magnet" and the very air causing one to "break up like static". Reminds me in some ways of Hodgson's The House on the Borderlands and some of Lovecraft's better stories. Eerie.