BOUND
Stories in the night told
The wind moves above the trees and I’m gone from my body calling out
To save me, come take me tonight
We climb through the evening mists
Our memories fall, bleeding and limp
Born to white light
From firelit window and open doors
The roads are paved with golden bars
And round and round the world is bound
By a chain of radiant stars
Outside a patch of ghost pipe
Grows along the prairie drive and I’m caught in a circle bone white
By the pale life inside
Feel something take root in me
Like a fox caught, metal and teeth
Bone split, broken and free
From firelit window and open doors
The roads are paved with golden bars
And round and round the world is bound
By a chain of radiant stars
The circle spins around us
The whole world cobbled from dust
The circle spins around us
We're reborn as stars collide
EARLY FROST
The ice on the windshield melts away in the morning sunlight
Last night my call came ten years too late
Drive south on the highway
Modern myth is dying
Modern man is lost
No more mountain learning before we’re caught
We swear that we will try to
Change all that we were born to
It comes when it’s quiet
It comes at night
A clarion call sounds to gather ‘round fires with you in arm
Telling tales of gold crowns
Relearn what we’ve gathered in the small hours
Sit and stare out at uncharted waters
We swear that we will try to
Change all that we were born to
Depend on those you turn to
Grow old together with you
DARK HEART OF THE WOOD
Born with a crest of your own
Seven-league boots on a balsam throne
Hemmed-in woodlands, carved from stone
A songbird full of the tunes you stole
And a rusted trailer can’t outlast the running water
Oxide into autumn wire
And the grass will thread the holes with green and gold
O! Springtime’s choir
Gotta risk it all
For the promise held in another’s hand
Gotta risk it all
Outside yourself you’ll understand
Born without a crest of my own
No skeleton key for all closed doors
I came so close that the window froze
From the breath I took, from the breath you stole
And your winter armor can’t protect you from another
Confide in the hunter’s moon
And the summer sleeps until the hawthorn blooms
O! Come too soon
Gotta risk it all
For the promise held in another’s hand
Gotta risk it all
Outside yourself you’ll understand
You really shouldn’t look at me that way
You really, really got to let it go some day
You should take the hand you’re sworn to take but if you stay...
NORTH STAR
Yellow tinged with green
Masses of evanescence swarm the stars like angry bees
And I’m clad in my father’s furs
Held aloft on a silver mirror shallow thin and cold
But I won’t go into the night
Don’t care what experts claim
No mood for practicality when all the myths remain
Warriors overhead
In one gigantic rosette of flame, to shine in red
But i won’t go into the night
No, I will wait for the light
Will it ever come back
To this heart of mine
This rooted pine
Will it ever come back
Won’t you ever come back home
COVER OF WINTER
The first light on the wall
And I had noticed how
The sounds were changing
You were sleeping through it all
The growth of beak and claws
My wings were aching
You were suddenly, under me miles and miles away
Rise up against the wind
Release your grip
Circling, circling one more time again
With every feathery sweep of wing
Reconstruct my origin
Leaving it leaving it all behind again
How I’ve missed this cold
The freezing and the thaw of winter waking
Barefoot and alone
After touching down
My hands were shaking
Trembling, remembering their own power again
Rise up against the wind
Release your grip
Circling, circling one more time again
With every feathery sweep of wing
Reconstruct my origin
Leaving it leaving it all behind again
Too young and dumb to be afraid
Tumbled down and in a terrible calamity
Caught and snared, await the day
Impatiently I’m leaving it leaving it all behind again
LAST RITES
The house she grew up in is now
Adrift in an ocean of sand
Cactus line the drive
Spires in a line
Empty malls entwine
First love, last rites
Of the pure hearted
No regrets, it’s just life
Save the dreaming for when we’re asleep
A red-eyed sunset bled white
Caught in the driveway, tongue-tied
Sweetest thing she knows
Heavy like a stone
Thrown around young bones
In the fading light of day
Memories fall away
And only dust remains
INTO THE ROIL
Why do you look so surprised that our luck’s run out
Another perfect day
Another endless drought
And the rising tide
I never meant it oh to feel this spark
Did you expect me just to come apart
It'll come for you
It'll come for you
Like it comes for me
It'll come for you
It'll come for you like it comes for me
I know you haven't tried
To let the flood run down
Overflow the banks and wash the hatred out
It'll come for you
It'll come for you
Like it comes for me
It'll come for you
It'll come for you like it comes for me
Seas will rise
Ebb and flow
Ebb and flow
I will survive
Let me go
Let me go
Thrown into the roil
I'm the wave out of control
In the overflow
WAX/WANE
Every day you would wave to the night-shift workers
Dancing a hurricane round the corner
Gone to a place where the loose ends gather
Fabric unraveling faster and faster
Theory of everything
Pulled along by a string
Around your cold little heart
Told that the limelight still keeps shining
After the cameras all stop rollin
Just another scene
Diamond ring make believe
Whispering offscreen
Bring me back the first branch of summer
Whittle it down, throw it in the embers
What’s at stake for what we’ve created
I hope that the waiting has made you stronger
Mirror, mirror, by the lamplight
Down the streets, young things keep calling
Tasseography, haruspex, palmistry
Tell your secrets to me
PEACEMAKER
Tread carefully over the trip wires
And cover the tracks that show
Reflections of signal fires
The river runs black like a plume of smoke
Release your breath
Muzzle flash
No god comes to those who fall
Wipe off your warpaint
Take off your armor
I’ll wash the blood away
Your sons will be reborn
Raised up on stolen soil
Now steady your hands
Take site
In fire your faith restored
Like stripes on a uniform
Red and gold
But you story will be retold
Put on your peacemaker
Houses burn thick with smoke
Your sons will be reborn
Raised up on stolen soil
WANDERLUST
Backroads, rutted deep
I know these paths from my old life
Storefronts have changed, streets rearranged
Underneath the two stoplights
With you, was where i learned love
With you, was where i learned love
But the prairie wind is cold
Steals the heat from your bones
And scatters you out like seeds alone
Walk through the fields, past powerlines, and the old roadside graves
Painted names under bridges
Painted saints swear Jesus saves
And I, feel changed but the same
And i have been remade
Time goes by so fast
Cracking paint
Sagging stained glass
Friends scattered to the unknown
But the stage lives on alone
Let him who will
Go wander still
Out past the lights of town
To find something that never can be found
Cold before the dawn
It's a fond farewell
Darkness moving on
Released March 4, 2014
Lovely Dark:
Sonia Even: Vocals
Travis Even: Guitar and Vocals
Ben Johnston: Drums and Aux. Percussion
Max Becker: Drums
Kent Thomson: Bass and Vocals
Joe Clark: Guitar
Recorded by Ben Durrant at Crazy Beast
Mastered by Bruce Templeton at Magneto Mastering