LETTER TO THE EXILES LYRICS

1. Open Graves

Now we are slaves to our own history,
new architects of divine treachery.
When it's over what becomes of you and I?
The bastard sons of a gentile line.
There are open graves, desecration our human hands have made.
I am throwing myself to the abyss, and the ashes prove the flame.
This is what I know of faith.
I offer this, some compensation for consequence.
I test my method, some expression of my repentance.
Now to the architect, construct of imagination,
I leave his body as my free-will's evidence of a failed design.
I am throwing myself to the jackals.
What becomes of you and I?
The bastard sons of a gentile line.
We're not the hollow vessels,
we're not forgotten slaves.
We're not an abstract concept.
We are not open graves.
Now watch it burn to the ground.
Watch as I will tear it down.
I will break this earth, I will watch it burn.
This is offered to you:
Can you hear the sound of truth, it's calling out to you.
I have one truth, given to me and offered to you.
What is dead will rise again.

2. Conversations With Fallen Saints

I've been tearing down these walls
I've seen it all
I've seen it all

We wear our sins
On the back of angels
We wear regret
In our skin
Give it weight
Sink it in

Is this what you wanted?
Trading love for violence
They stand here wanting
Something more than promises

The destruction that is to come
The collection of daughters and sons
Casting out all the idols we made
Fools teaching fools
The blind lead the blind

And all of this is in our hands
This life without and death within
The suffering of an aged nation
It shakes the ground and it calls our name
It calls our name
It calls our name

Ransoming the rest
We give our lives to save
We give our lives to save

What is this?
The son of man betrayed by a kiss

So is this our inheritance?
Some broken bones, some blood-stained hands
I count the cost of this violence
It's evident that we will see this end

This is the life we lead
You gave us a love everlasting, everlasting

There is a strength in us
To take back everything we once held dear
To rise and rise again and wash the blood from our hands
We'll take it back
The worth of this world
Wake up your saints and open your eyes

This is the life we lead (this is our life)
This is the love we keep (this is our love)
This is the life we lead (that we lead)
This is the love we keep (love we keep)

Don't you dare turn your back on this?
Don't you dare turn your back on this?

3. Retribution

When will it end?
I've been calling your name for days.
Were you a lie? Can you even hear my voice?
Do my words fall on deaf ears?
Is this my reckoning?
I've been dreading this day for so long, it's finally found me.
All my sins, past regrets, are catching up to me.
This is the last thing I wanted.
Where's the justice in this?
There is no one to blame but myself so take me.

I was the damned.
She was the innocent victim.
I was the damned.
I am the damned. So take me.

Redemption is within your reach, open your eyes and see.
Hold onto hope. Stand up and claim your kingdom.
It's time to rise and disown your shame.
You can leave it all at the cross.
There is peace when you live in the kingdom.
Now you've been freed of this guilt as we rebuke the lies,
the pain, the chains that hold you down.
No more retribution.
Now I can hear your voice sing, it's the sound of salvation.
Oh, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me.

4. They Made Me The War Machine

I was the whole world helping my brother die.
I was the first war pulling your voice from the sky.
I became the bad dream of a wretched society.

You're tempted by the power they gave you.
You sell yourself to lay your brother down.
What's changed in you now?
This sick sense of clarity...

It's haunting your dreams.
It's haunting everything you've made.
It's haunting everything.
Beyond this unclear holiness
and the illusion of light
I can see your face,
I can hear your name.
Let your grace fall like rain.

I chose scarlet lines over a white paper grain
so the lines would stand out.
Now raise my brother's body up.

Now there is blood on both of us.
You're sleeping in the house of your enemies,
the traitors and their sick sense of clarity.
They're desperate for the company.
Trapped inside this single state of mind;
he stares at the brink of his collapse.
My brother's past on these unholy hands.
They made me the war machine.
I am the war machine.

5. Thieves

You said that you would bury us,
break our backs and turn us into dust.

You are breaking the boundary of your own existence.
Did you think it would fall so fast?
What is this but some weak resistance,
or a lie that could never last?

They cry redemption with closed lips
so all we hear is the silence.
Holy were we once, and Holy will we be.

I did not come for your questions
I came looking for peace.

A conviction that's pushing us into the ground,
it's enough to bleed out the weak and offer hope for none.

You gave up everything.
You're a traitor to your own faith.
Your progress, it follows a humble step.
I'll unchain your lies in a single breath.
Every open wound can be taken away.
Every single word will mean nothing to me.
You've forgotten who you are.
You forgot what you came for. Take it back!

6. A World Of Wicked Men

Oh, what a mess I've made.
What a mess these hands have made of this kingdom.
The kingdom come and gone.

This love is blasphemy
as it rises and remains in me.
I'll expel it from my waking mind,
my waking memory.

We felt a tear in the fabric, a break in the seam.
If there's a body to blame it won't be me.
Father can you see your son?
He can't see anyone...

This love is blasphemy
as it rises and remains in me.
I'll expel it from my waking mind,
my waking memory.

I stand silent among them who trained my hands.
It was mine to hold, that bitter regret,
unseen by blessed creation,
where we made a war with words under the name of a risen Son.
This generation mourns.

This love is blasphemy
as it rises and remains in me.
I'll expel it from my waking mind,
my waking memory.

Father can you see your son?
He can't see anyone.

7. The Violence Of Our Kind

Everything you've ever said to me;
lost and concentrated in this hate.
Unholy shepherds leading the wandering.
Look at what I've become, a ghost of what I was.
Nailing the door shut, throwing ourselves at the wall.
Wondering what has become of once holy instruments.
These are the figures of fallen hearts called home.

Everything you've ever said to me;
lost and concentrated in this hate.
Were it not for the pride of mankind
causing us to falter, causing us to fall out of line.

And heaven replies to our sympathies, resounding:
Take back everything you know about love.
We will see this end undone.
But I can count the years I've been wandering from this violence,
and from this madness.
Ashes to ashes your flesh is still flesh.
I'll cut the life from this dying wish.

8. Transcendence

[Instrumental]

9. The Greater Hands Of Lesser Sons

With the devil at my back,
giving lies in the form of dreams. Unfinished.
With a heart unfinished, a body undone.
Never hearing a voice or the sound of moving steps.
Living life like a sickness,
I let the cancer increase.
This is how the venom works.
'You are so broken' that's what you said to me.
This is restless sleep.
These are prophets' dreams.
So when I wake what will I see,
the image of a madman before me or some holy presence?
Make us calm! Amongst us: a remnant of what was.
I hear the fall in the sound of walking away
with the devil at my back giving lies in the form of dreams.
This is the recollection of what I used to be,
but as it stands this is who I am.
All my wanderings to no avail, risen now, not called to mourn.
The sight arrested, suspended in my mind, the image of a madman before me.
Where there is nothing Spirit now create!

10. Make Amends

At what cost do I walk away,
do I tear from me my own hate and let go?
I have walked for so long.
I have walked so far
from being a saint and a long way
from this holy ground my father made.
Wandering feet remain without cause, without name.
I carried this curse all the way,
as I carried your hurt,
as I carried your hate.

Now I carry this broken body back to the beginning.
I can rebuild these hands, rebuild this broken home.
What will it take to forgive the fall of man, the fall in me?

What will it take to forgive the fall of man?
Rebuild these broken hands.
Rebuild this broken home and make amends.
Forgive the fall in me.

With such subtle words the answer came
like a call from that forgotten place.
It will carry me. It calls to us.
With all this darkness surrounding,
Father would you even let us go home?
If there is grace I pray it comes to us
where my enemies walk as brothers beside me.





LETTER TO THE EXILES LYRICS