Track By Tracks: Negative Wall - Gammagelu (2018)

'Gammagelu' is the album title and roughly translates from latin as the frost of gamma. Latin is known as the universal language so I wrote some of the album in latin or latin derivatives or even free form words such as one might find in the writings of Lewis Carroll. 

1. "Imperii Exsules (Galactic Viatores)":

Is directly influenced by the 60's sci-fi show The Outer Limits, particularly the episode entitled 'The Zanti Misfits". In it, perfectionist aliens from the planet Zanti decide to make Earth a penal colony for their criminals, large ants with grotesque human faces. The title means exiled imperials and I go on to loosely describe the situation within the lyrics. Galactic Travelers is an instrumental feel piece tagged onto the song for the album version only. If you buy the extended single or get it on the compilation Doombanomicon, it's missing. This starts the album off with an epic feel for music. 

2. "Hybrid Genus Serpentis":

This is a sci-fi story told in a concise way and taking liberty with words being a mash of latin and a fictional slang. The story is of an astronaut who is raped by a female serpent like creature, then he bears the offspring which grows quickly and en-capsules the astronaut in a container which is released at the end of the universe and he finds himself the only life form in existence. I think that even with the created words, the points are obvious. The first line says "Moist her kais, reptilian". What is moist? And it's what? The important points that the listener needs to know are obvious immediately within 4 words. I left motivation and reason to the listener. 

3. "Mater Saeva Kp22":

This has a slight sci-fi implication to it as Kp22 is one of the potential Earth's that have been discovered out there. The overall point I predicted was that we will take our problems with us. The lyrics are a reworking of an old English murder ballad. A murder ballad is a form of song and sometimes changed to less obvious children's rhymes. This one is usually called 'The Cruel Mother' or other variants such as The Maid and the Palmer or The Green Sidey. I found it in 'Ballads Weird and Wonderful', a book of traditional works. It tells the story of a mother who is either promiscuous or forced into a birth, I let the listener decide, and then commits matricide, therefore rope hung by authorities. There is a spoken part that suggests bad mothers go to hells and their babies go the heavens. I've used this rewriting of a traditional song several times in my own career. For example, "To Live is to Bleed" by Bludy Gyres is a metal rendition of "John Barleycorn", and about 7 verses shorter. One might hear "The Cruel Mother" performed by a couple of musicians in the corner of an Irish pub over a dark ale sometime.

4. "Torquemada 71":

This is an Electric Wizard cover. Although it isn't sci-fi, it is yet another song with a bizarre description of forcible sex and the seeming love of that plus punishment. Whereas the other three songs all have birth and death and sci-fi in common as well as forceful sex, this one is just for the joy of it.