Get all 5 Advent releases available on Bandcamp and save 40%.
Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of Canto XXVI (The Evil Counselors), Silent Sentinel [CD quality], Silent Sentinel [audiophile 2496], Advent (abridged), and Cantus Firmus.
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Just a quick perusal,
So the lots are drawn—sober up now, as always you retain
Right of first refusal,
Free to sidle past—tho’ all roads lead back to Dunsinane.
A fact brooks no argument,
Press on, as though each step may be your last.
Move along, there’s no sense standing ’round to wait
For a sunken ship to self-explain.
All the senses rankle,
Never trust a thane bought and sold for a crude and selfish wage,
While a thousand Banquos
Spend their lamps in vain with swords drawn and valors unengaged.
The tides bode of fire and toil,
Carry on, and bear all things in good cheer.
Pity the usurpers, having much to fear.
(Were their fortunes left for hags to presage?)
Harvest of confusion,
Seeds of doubt the years o’er sown, now fully grown.
In their disillusion,
They know not where or whence their own flag is flown.
As they rendezvous with their own petard,
The Deceiver’s trickeries lain out in most stark portrayal,
Michael leads his glorious, Praetorious guard
Where arcane “terpsichories” do not avail.
So the restoration
As before, now awaits its own “wall of wood.”
A defoliation
Of the place where Birnam’s verges stood.
As the songs of old do inspire again,
Though the house be desolate and the winter’s night prolonged,
’Mid the frost and cold, there’ll be fire again—
’Tis the hour to discern weak from strong.
“Maple, apple, oak, or larch?”
There’s a tree assigned to you now.
Shoulder up, and forward march!
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2. |
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Lost for awhile, thoughts at play, moving on the wings
Of an ant in flight, with a stealth worthy of a dream.
Flutters past, now and then, some faint reminder …
Try again to decipher the stream.
Like the branch in the storm that taps at the window,
Moot and unresolved, the question for me …
And the wind gives the lie to my lot
As the moon taunts the sea.
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3. |
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Overcast, expecting showers later on in the day.
Revise, and then consign some small resistance to
Another urgent change of plans….
An hour well past re-barricades all avenues of escape,
A line within a song gives no assistance to
Indulge an idle pair of hands.
A light repast, and resignation—hurry now, and begin …
No sooner underway, I start to dream of places that
I know I’ve never been.
Thoughts fly west, someplace iconic (now, or some other year) …
A Golden State of mind my inner boarding pass,
Because I think I’m hearin’ …
Voices from California, it doesn’t matter what kind as long as they’re …
Voices from California, a magic place of warmth and harmony
Soaring forever….
Resigned to “trial-by-solipsism,” time and place not my own,
The weather mild and fair as I cross into that zone.
I laugh to myself, but meanwhile a familiar theme comes to mind …
Distortion, more or less, like an old newspaper re-read and left behind.
A perfect day, a perfect beach where we can watch the girls for a while.
The only problem is, I kinda missed the exit by 3,000 miles.
Voices from California, it doesn’t matter what kind as long as they’re …
Voices from California, the answer lies so many miles away.
Voices from California, it never matters what time of year it is.
Voices from California, another place of warmth and harmony
Soaring forever….
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4. |
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5. |
Reloj de Sol [2496]
02:35
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6. |
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In my room, in my place, silent and secure,
I can feel my soul, myself sinking into night….
Midnight creeps circumspect
Pours through the cracks in the walls
And there it collects.
In the cobwebs amidst the shadows
Blooming like a weed of delight …
And despair in a cavern
The sunlight neglects.
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7. |
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Forward, watchman, ever forward, never look back,
Timeworn contours contend from grey to black.
Fortunes foretold, remnants, old romantic clichés,
Night’s cold threshold….
Remember for a minute more (give or take),
New yesterdays lost in its wake.
Gaslight (sleep tight!) … and harpsichord,
Broadwood upright (just recently restored),
Authors, classics, rare and hard to find,
Portraits, heirlooms, and curiosities one of a kind.
And at twelve bells of the hour
As one ponders the things that are passing,
Autumn winds swirling ’round the clock tower
Find their mark as the leaves
Heed the tempter’s voice
As it cuts through the trees.
The night’s slumbers may bring
A reminder of four final things.
1ST THING:
So, how’s the tale proceeding?
Will it sell? Have you thought of an end?
Make resolve, break resolve,
Foiled again. (My own internal Fred Astaire!)
One weighs the answer
Who knows the dancer.
2ND THING:
Shorn of all self-exemption,
Broken, silenced, reduced to a cower,
Weighed and known, in that awful hour,
One can’t deceive, nor self-deceive.
Hear in mute prostration
Of the final station.
3RD THING:
Child of Circe
(Lord, have mercy?),
Oh, no, no … no one says that here,
(Except … maybe as a curse!)
Bought the plan
(But then it) Hit the fan….
(But at least) I know things can’t get worse.
Crossroad, highway,
Extra, my way,
Why remorse? Why so haunted?
This is what you wanted.
“Think, remember when you had the help?”
But now I’ve got myself all to myself.
4TH THING:
Bright beyond expectation,
Through a glass once but darkly beheld,
Rest assured the Director’s cut
Only features all that’s fit to tell
Of a role refashioned
Through a season’s passion.
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8. |
12/12 [2496]
02:38
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9. |
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Pilots serve their resignations
While passengers spurn all destinations
But one.
Sage advice seems melodramatic
And can’t be heard above the static
While the ladies wonder where the children
Have gone.
Lambs now find themselves applauding
As wolves in their midst still marauding
Preside.
Last shot, make it far enough,
For the last time.
Last stop, take it, time is up
For my design.
“X” marks the hour when the lights go on.
Oh, how long can you refuse?
Don’t you know when all’s been said and done,
It’s still ours to lose?
Once and for all our ora pro nobises.
And the houselights flicker on,
To illuminate all to their standing—
All once hoped for, accomplished, intended
Made plain.
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10. |
Second Thoughts [2496]
02:21
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11. |
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Now alone, themes return, music, mine the score …
Each event remains, every rest leaving by the door.
More than silence can ever fill,
Sometimes the sense of it all
Keeps haunting me still.
Old polyphonies keep retaining truth’s preserve,
The patience of years.
And the wasting of the time still remaining’s
The greatest of fears.
As I ponder the moment once more
And I savor the chill.
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12. |
Romanitas [2496]
12:02
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Advent Bridgewater, New Jersey
Perhaps a modern equivalent to the symphonic side of classic English progressive-rock groups like Gentle Giant, (early) Genesis, and Procol Harum, but with a little Tubes-style funk and the occasional jazz-rock flourish as well, Advent seeks to blend true classical-quality composition with the excitement and dynamics of rock music. ... more
Advent recommends:
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A very timely political concept album by another great local prog band.
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