Track By Tracks: Spiritual Deception - Semitae Mentis (2024)

"Semitae Mentis" is our very first full-length album after 3 EPs in which we had the opportunity to create our sound. It's an album to which we dedicated a lot of time and on which we reflected deeply. It's not a concept album (even though there are 4 interconnected tracks within it); we wanted to step out of our usual themes to broaden them. There are lyrics inspired by various disciplines dear to us, such as Philosophy, Physics, Metaphysics, and Literature. Now, let's delve into an analysis of each track:

1. The I Swells... (Decadence pt.I):

This is the opening track of the album and the shortest one. It's also the first song of the mini-concept related to the theme of Decadence. The theme of this song is the decay of mankind fueled, or perhaps better said, caused by selfishness that leads the self to destroy and self-destruct.

2. Atavic Future (Decadence pt.II):

"Atavic Future" is the second track, focusing on the decline of human civilization. With a title that encapsulates a strong oxymoron between the adjective "Atavic" (related to the past, something connected to ancestors) and "Future," we imagined what might remain of human society once it self-destructs. A major source of inspiration for this song was David Mitchell's novel "Cloud Atlas," particularly the setting related to Zachry's events. We envisioned a destroyed, inhospitable, arid world where humanity, dragging itself day by day in an attempt to survive, has regressed to prehistoric times, barbarism, and violent cults.

3. The Days of Sleep (Decadence pt.III):

"The Days of Sleep" is closely tied to "Atavic Future." While in "Atavic Future" we envisioned the future after the fall of human civilization, in "The Days of Sleep," we imagined the causes of that downfall. Without much effort, just by looking at global news, one can understand that the only possible cause is human selfishness. The title is inspired by Francisco Goya's work "The Sleep of

Reason Produces Monsters."

4. Beyond Perception and Matter:

This track is quite unique; it doesn't follow a specific theme but rather aims to narrate an impression. The song attempts to imagine the state of our consciousness beyond physical matter.

5. Dirac Sea (feat. Luc Lemay - Gorguts):

"Dirac Sea" draws inspiration from the theoretical model formulated by physicist Paul Dirac, where a vacuum is described as an infinite sea of negative energy particles. What fascinated me wasn't so much the physical perspective (a viewpoint far beyond our reach) but the psychological/philosophical aspect. In this description of the "filled" Void with particles of negative energy, I revisited one of the great concepts of psychology and art: horror vacui. From this suggestion, I constructed the entire lyrics, describing precisely this fear and what it can generate in humans.

6. The Night Opens:

This instrumental track serves as an intro to "On the Edge of the Abyss."

7. On the Edge of the Abyss:

The track is inspired by Lovecraft's story 'Dagon' and follows the main traits of the original narrative. Ultimately, it focuses on the macabre fantasy expressed by the protagonist at the end of the story, before taking his own life, that is, the dream of the day when the ocean will reclaim the land.

8. Thousand Lives Within (feat. Karl Sanders - Nile):

This track aims to be a humble tribute to Jorge Luis Borges' tale "The Immortal." One of the most beautiful and famous texts by the writer in which the protagonist understands the importance of death and how it manages to exalt human life.

9. Individuality Dissolves:

This track delves into the album's most 'philosophical' themes. It draws from concepts in Carl Jung's philosophy, particularly that of the 'collective unconscious,' rephrasing and expanding them to a cosmological level where all the essences of the universe are interconnected.

10. ...To the Coldest Decline (Decadence pt.IV)

The last track closes both the album and the mini-concept on Decadence. This song connects to the first track musically because both start with the same chords. However, while "The I Swells..." is the shortest on the album, "...To the Coldest Decline" is the longest. Thematically, both deal with transience, but from diametrically opposed perspectives: while in "The I Swells," the focus is on the self, here, the focus is on the entire universe! Starting from an astrophysical theory called the "Heat Death of the Universe," we wanted to imagine what could happen once all the energy in the universe is exhausted. The macrocosm/microcosm relationship is a theme that has always fascinated me! One final note, to further emphasize this parallelism between the two tracks, both titles are meant to be united in a single sentence: "The I swells to the coldest decline."