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A Better World Rejected

by Selfist

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1.
Committed to Collapse 02:33
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Their methods of control Cloaked in benevolence Systems designed to twist your mind Into accepting this Resistance hibernating But there’s no point in waiting Sleeping, dormant Awaiting insurrection Illusion of safety False pretense of protection When the hammer drops we’ll be the first to go We’ve put our beliefs on display for the masters to know (Broadcasted, recorded, databased and sorted) Our shrines of self-worship disintegrate Foundations built of just whicker and clay Programmed to plummet Destined to decay Committed to collapse We carry on this path Step after step We count our last breaths One second closer to death
2.
A Crime Against No One 02:12
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Captive minds Locked from inside Swallow the key Lower the blinds Tune into static Turn out the lights Turn up the tension Narrow your sight You put conditions on what can’t be quantified An inability to see through others’ eyes Consumed by actions which have zero consequence React with vicious spite and blind intolerance Your anger has no virtue Our differences can’t hurt you You fight against the gamut of expressions of the planet’s love From crumbling pedestals You spew your vitriol Decrepit rhetoric From failing vocal cords Tie the tongues Dissect the text Extract the lines From codices Selective reading Flawed fundaments Twisted translations Dead testaments Contempt constructed by your insecurities Age-old denial of dissimilarities Obsolete archetypes, expired social roles Futile attempts to fight that which you can’t control Your hate is antiquated Your prejudice outdated Your logic comes undone A crime against no one Immutable, you turn the volume down in vain A vibrant chorus resonating all the same Are they your own hidden desires That cast the blameless in the fire
3.
Blowback Effect 03:25
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A continent on fire A crumbling empire A climate of distress Violently manifests unrest Our failure and our shame now in plain sight We can’t escape the blame We’re blinded by the light The karmic crash of centuries of pain The city and the forest burning all the same (In flames) Our boots upon their necks Our privileges unchecked Blowback effect The fuck did we expect The fuck did we expect Fury unbound Injustice so profound A boiling melting pot on stolen ground The blood of empire spills over the sides Can’t fight the current of the turning tide We drown Our comforts only serve to weigh us down A continent on fire A crumbling empire We fail to reconcile the guilt For all the blood we’ve spilt Look what we’ve built We’re all looking for easy answers We all want to make order from chaos But like praying to stop a cancer Our impotent methods betray us Our beliefs confine us Let our grief define us With the consequence of our negligence Lurking just behind us We can drink to the future We can toast to a brand new day But the hands of the butcher Leave a stain we can’t wash away We can’t wipe the disgrace from our name Our crimes too numerous to count An incalculable amount Condemned to reap what we have sown This bitter fruit that we have grown The pendulum swings back The echo of the whip still cracks The chains still rattling The blood it boils black
4.
Nothing Will Change 02:39
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Nothing will change Just a rearranging of corporate interest A bidding war To ensure continued loyal service To feudal lords In modern serfdom we laud our freedoms Distressing options eclipsing reason We place our faith in repeated misleading Hope-selling, retelling of transparent falsehoods They barely conceal ulterior interests (They’re play-acting poorly but we prefer comfort) Pretending our system isn’t a business (Our moral delusions eventually crumble) That these opportunists might represent us That they possess just a vestige of conscience In open ocean they scuttle the ship The lifeboats will only have room for the rich A passage we never were meant to survive The cynics we silenced and pushed to the side We underestimate The absolute absence of care Those in commanding roles Commit to the burden they bare They are not here to serve us Is it that we deserve this Are we destined to kneel Acquiescing to these Structures we won’t question Remain on our knees Or is it possible for an alternate path to be set Most times it feels like the cards have already been dealt (And we’re just left here) Expected to settle the debt In open ocean they scuttle the ship The lifeboats will only have room for the rich A passage we never were meant to survive The cynics we silenced and pushed to the side Hope manufactured, betrayal awaits The body politic laying in state We cast our votes in this temple of fear Our ballots uncounted, the outcome is clear
5.
Designer Afterlives 01:50
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Let me up for air I breathe it and I disappear My bones turn to dust Can’t hold my interest Rephrase the absolutes To expedite the search for truth No shortcut to enlightenment exists But you persist With vicious sacraments In sterile temples rich with artifice Might please the eye But not the consciousness Receptors stimulated Spirits still enslaved You’ve glimpsed the sun but backtrack to the cave You know the truth but prefer lies Designer afterlives Eternity contrived Collective eyes Turn inward They’re burning in the shine The blinding glare as our Trajectory unwinds You invest heavy in the lie Combusting in the fires of time Dull promises of immortality Subliminal appeals to vanity Apochryphal divinity Our chains won’t set us free
6.
Immensity Condensed 03:04
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I’m done with hope Our dialogue is finished I often choke But this has no beginning No words to set the scene Just cruel reality The coldness of the world Just one more battle for me I try to keep the spark alive A four year sentence for a nine to five We all grind just to live But there’s limits to what we possess to give Obsessed with being somewhere where I’m not Orientation? No destination Rewrite the narrative, ignore the holes in the plot Somehow not disparaged by aging’s unprejudiced onslaught Clinging to the vestiges of youth Overinvested in selected truths We all use our perception To filter out the indiscretions We all choose to shape the world according to our views And when our rigid frameworks start to crystallize we lose With pressure so intense it’s natural to build defense We lose ourselves while trying to find some sense Prescribing worth to patterns purposeless Immensity condensed to fit our narrow lenses Minutia magnified without a greater context Convinced we’ve got it figured out I can’t help but entertain my doubts Collecting the dust from the creases Frantically flip through the pages The pressure increases with each passing stage of this unproven thesis I’m done with hope, our dialogue is finished I’m a patient boy but we all have our limits A familiar scene, just cruel reality The coldness of the world, just one more battle for me
7.
Void Ritual 03:47
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Born in a critical age When history moves at a faster pace We are torn from our natural state Thrown into the fire and baptized by flames Cremated as a rite of passage Shrouded in smoke and drowning in ashes Translated from ancient dialects These smoke signals tell tales of violence Encoded into failing mainframes A Rorschach test from dissolving bloodstains Compressed encryption from the astral plane Direct transmission to the victim’s brain An overload to control the senses A neural code to unlock transcendence Complete awareness, complete dependence Delete the ritual devoid of reverence Ascendance ascertained Ordained to lead us to a shallow grave Depraved Exaggerate the aptitude for change Unwilling to commence the steps to break away The cycle more cemented every day Ingrained Resent the repetition but exalt the altered state Survive the spiral of new dawns, new shames The pieces fall apart and rearrange Estranged
8.
A Better World Rejected 01:37
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There’s no nature in privilege No greater logic in oppression But you construct facades Of reason and justification Arrogantly weave a narrative to explain Systemic, ceaseless suffering in your colonial domain Our efforts misdirected A better world rejected The glaring injustice apparent to all Who assume objective perspectives And see through the boundaries imposed by the powerful Keeping us all disconnected An overwhelming tide Of hatred created by national pride Religion and history can’t justify Extinguishing innocent life An intifada to resist apartheid And the slaughter of the millions occupied Our struggles are connected A better world rejected
9.
Brand New Hell 02:13
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What brand new hell is this Damnation with a twist Devils with face-lifts and fake tits Sell you the suffering so slick You’ll withdraw everything to pay for it Withdraw your mind Purchase declined Withdraw and wither, disconnect From all perspectives that reject This backwards march into a wretched destiny We shine the boots on Orwell’s stomping prophecy We scrub the fragments of our cranial debris Cephalic detritus There’s no hope left for us Our future’s set in stone We face the void alone No guiding hand No well-laid plan No saviour to return Alone we’re born Together we will burn What lies in store for us This task of Sisyphus Under the weight our backs will break Disintegrate and turn to dust Carried away by winds so ravenous Commit us to the past Our legacy won’t last Fragmented histories we’ve chiseled onto glass Transparent heresies, revered iconoclast Sacred uncertainties, we walk the darker path Divergent harmonies, we sing our song of wrath No history will replace us Myopia will erase us As time retraces the same tired route As alternate realities grow mute As future generations follow suit
10.
Stumble Through Seasons 02:30
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Still pacing circles in this cage I’ve built myself Serving sentence without repentance Deflated dreams collecting dust upon the shelf My future dimming and my prospects thinning These laboured musings of a lunatic Expelled so gracelessly, no tact or subtlety The noose of time grows tight around my neck I’m deemed unfit but the charges stick I stumble through seasons, they change too abruptly I’ve weathered this gale of regret quite adeptly I’ve listed my grievances, made my demands I’ve drafted this treatise with unsteady hands Struggling to stand (Mumbling curses) The hour hand (Stalls and reverses) I’ve wandered down these crooked paths before Now they’re overgrown and my age has shown I’ll fill this dirty glass for the last time With ill intent I’ll put my pen to paper I’ll weave a truth out of these tangled lies And leave the mess for you to deal with later Awake, arise Let the sun hit my dead eyes Condemned, confined Daylight strikes me blind Reword, revise Recontextualize The phrases I frame to make sense of my life
11.
Centuries of Suffering 02:05
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Shadows grow longer over burial plots Cadavers hidden under shallow layers rot Nameless unholy martyrs we’ve forgot A hex to mark the spot Sleeping serpent stirring Prophecy unfurling Every desperate warning Strangely reassuring Watching as the fault lines widen Parallel timelines colliding Fissures in our minds now shining Casting blinding light on dark horizons Torn from our places, faceless we recede Into the sealed crypts of memory Away from prying eyes, disguised we hide In anonymity Let no man enter Let no man leave Avert your gaze from the bereaved Enshrine the guilty beyond gilded gates Blood moon entombed A darker dawn awaits We sing off tune in choirs of hate Silence the critics and repeat our mistakes Cursing in dead language Centuries of anguish Voice of reason strangled Destinies entangled
12.
Chorus of Discouragement 03:44
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I coat myself in blood and ash To camouflage my true intentions ‘Cause when this suffering comes to pass I think its hardly worth a mention That this terminus we’ve been drifting to This aftermath we’ve been sifting through Is all part and parcel of the same mistake We thought we’d roasted at the stake So take that hatchet out of your back And bury it in my fucking face It’s a postscript I’ll embrace Give in A chorus of discouragement crescendos In vain I stir the dying fire’s embers As I externalize my deficiencies These alibis become priorities Compartmentalize all the dreams I’ve killed Uninspired and unfulfilled Caught in a cycle Disconsolate future Despondent and spiteful My screws coming looser I’m blurring the boundaries Of dreams and reality The simplest confounds me I’ve lost rationality Falling to pieces I’m doomed to repeat this Route that leads nowhere My maps obsolete The compass keeps spinning as I drag my feet Nearing the summit I look for a view Searching in vain for a sliver of truth No trail to guide me, no landmark beside me I’ve been here before but my instincts divide me Failure ahead, regret is behind me One life to live, I just keep climbing Sleepwalk through landslides Somnambulant alpine Guided by visions Misreading the signs Torn between choices Confusing the voices That echo through valleys that stretch beyond time (Analysis pointless, no reason or rhyme) We trace a circle in the dirt To welcome back the apparition That we worked so hard to banish From our nebulous cognition When it vanished our relief Was joyous, genuine and brief As scars once healed opened up again to bleed We held our dripping limbs above the seeds That they might grow a new myth for us to believe

about

Engineered by Jesse Gander (Brutus, Japandroids) and mastered by Alan Douches (Converge, Every Time I Die), A Better World Rejected compiles six years’ worth of songwriting into its 32-minute runtime. Channeling a variety of punk rock subgenres, from melodic hardcore to Youth Crew, this album walks a meandering path through familiar territory, challenging the listener to expect the unexpected.

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released July 10, 2023

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Selfist Vancouver, British Columbia

Selfist is a hardcore punk band residing on unceded Coast Salish territory.

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