The Embrace that Smothers

The other day I googled The Embrace that Smothers. I was surprised to find… well not much about the Embrace.

So what is the embrace that smothers? The Embrace that Smothers is a series of nine songs and a prologue mostly written by Mark Jansen. The saga is about how following religion blindly can be harmful and destructive. Throughout history people have done shit in the “name of the God”. Less today, but still… After all, most terrorists do their shit “for Allah” or whatever god they worship. And there are still many “hardcore” Christians.
I think it’s reallly pathetic to justify the shit you do through God.

The first four songs were released in an After Forever album since Mark Jansen was an After Forever founder and a band member at the time.
Epica, the band Jansen formed after he left After Forever, relesed the other six songs.
Both After Forever and Epica are, or were since After Forever disbanded, symphonic metal bands; so the saga is metal while retaining that classic sound.

Prologue: Mea Culpa

O mi Jesu, demitte nobis debita nostra,
salva nos ab igne inferiori, perduc in caelum
Omnes animas, praesertim eas,
quae misericordiae tuae maxime indigent

Sicut erat in principio
et nunc et semper et insaecula
saeculorum

Written by: Mark Jansen
Released: Prison of Desire (2000), After Forever

Part I: Leaden Legacy

I can’t look behind because I’m living in the past
Tears without emotion are filling up the unbridled hours

We cannot be
What you expect from us
We cannot see through the glasses of despair
Evade the leaden legacy

Those who separate and join the opposite
do not see that that will get them nowhere
Can’t you understand it is a similar manipulation
Wake up and see the light

Doomed to wander in repressed emotions
This imaginary refuge restrains me from awakening

Fear of penance
Doomed to sycophancy

Doomed to sycophancy…

Written by: Mark Jansen
Released: Prison of Desire (2000), After Forever

Part II: Follow in the Cry

Behind your facade hides an indomitable
lust for power and tyranny
Taking advantage of your pendencies

Fear is the doom, doom of us all
Instead of exterminating the weed
We allow it to overgrow our function

All means are justified for the “djihad fi sabil Allah”

I embrace you, accept my soul
I shall make my life subordinate to you
Live like your rules and laws prescribe
and follow you wherever I go

Follow in the cry

Hang this heretic who’s indulged in unchaste thoughts
Silence him such as the laws of the vellums prescribe
Pusillanimous massacres the order of the day
On behalf of power-hungry fundamentalists

Written by: Mark Jansen
Released: Prison of Desire (2000), After Forever

Part III: Yield to Temptation

They told you not to yield to temptation
And opened their arms,
Make your own inferences…

Inscrutable chaos in my head, inevitably
Greed will take its toll
Why?
There’s no place to hide
Let me free myself

The anathema’s driving millions,
Together in the pustules of our earth
Greed and self-denial,
The cause of unimpeded desecration of the truth

They told you not to yield to temptation,
But offered you only hypocrisy and ruin

The phantom of damnation
Threw her coat over humanity

They told you not to yield to temptation,
But offered you only hypocrisy and ruin

They told you not to yield to temptation,
But offered you only hypocrisy and ruin

Captive in the shackles of this indoctrination,
Depraved souls wished to be pure
Delight in deformity,
The last convulsions are building up
A bridge to a new era

The assumption of a faded supposition,
Never shall I be a marionette

The embrace that smothers…

Written by: Mark Jansen
Released: Prison of Desire (2000), After Forever

Part IV: Cry for the Moon

Follow your common sense
You cannot hide yourself
behind a fairytale forever and ever
Only by revealing the whole truth can we disclose
The soul of this sick bulwark forever and ever
Forever and ever

Indoctrinated minds so very often
Contain sick thoughts
And commit most of the evil they preach against

Don’t try to convince me with messages from God
You accuse us of sins committed by yourselves
It’s easy to condemn without looking in the mirror
Behind the scenes opens reality

Eternal silence cries out for justice
Forgiveness is not for sale
Nor is the will to forget

Virginity has been stolen at very young ages
And the extinguisher loses it’s immunity
Morbid abuse of power in the garden of eden
Where the apple gets a youthful face

You can’t go on hiding yourself
Behind old fashioned fairytales
And keep washing your hands in innocence

Written by: Mark Jansen
Released: The Phantom Agony (2003), Epica

Part V: Façade of Reality

Sanguis meus tibi non iam perbibendus sit

Macula aeterintatis
Numquam detergenda
Quisnam surget et deteget
Imaginem veritates ?

People created religious inventions
To give their lives a glimmer of hope
And to ease their fear of dying
And people created religious intentions
Only to feel superior and to have a license to kill

Our desire to die is stronger
Than all your desire for life
There is no getting away from it now
Only true faith survives

People created religious inventions
To give their lives a glimmer of hope
And to ease their fear of dying
And people created religious ascensions
To subject the others and to enslave, just to further enrich themselves

It doesn’t matter where we die
It doesn’t matter that you cry
We’ll take you with us

A disgrace on the beyond

O servator, sempiterne
Te grati coluimus, Odor atrox quo nons superfundis intolerabilis est

Deceive yourself by yielding
to soft words that cause no pain
Enrich yourself with different views
Learned without disdain

A disgrace on the beyond
That can never be undone
Who shall rise and unveil
The Facade of Reality?

Is there still room for new dents in old wrecks?
A disgrace on the beyond that can never be undone
Deceive yourself by yielding to soft words
Enrich yourself by making up your own mind

Sanguis meus tibi non iam perbibendus sit

Written by: Mark Jansen
Released: The Phantom Agony (2003), Epica

Part VI: Seif al Din

The origin of a dogma
Placed in a new millennium
Vilified demons have been embraced
And given a warm welcome

The Seif al Din
Hasn’t got the ghost of a chance to rust
Because it has always been kept in shape
In serving the one Almighty

The rudiments have always been misinterpreted during history,
despite the good intentions of many disciples who’s faithful believe was strong and unswayed.
Most leaders interpret the old words to their
advantage in the attempt of gaining leadership and power
over those unfortunate enough to fall under their maliciousness and manipulative ways.
This misuse of trust will forever stain the pages of history,
echoing the exploitation and the frailty of decent
men carried away by nurtured rancour…

Perpetual distrust fed by a belief
In the malevolence of the others

When the beautiful unreality holds out its hand
It’s better not to lose yourself in blind faith

La Illah Illallah, Mohammed rasul Allah

Written by: Mark Jansen
Released: The Phantom Agony (2003), Epica

Part VII: Death of a Dream

I followed your rules
A willing fool
Branded by shame

My soul suffers from your hostile ways
I bear so many scars, hit me hard
Time to change we have to rearrange
For this has gone too far, way too far

Creating new laws and living by unwritten rules
Restricting us

My soul suffers from your hostile ways
I can’t let go

Creating new spins on ancient creed to fit
Your views
Denying us

You created this world
Where honesty is not allowed
You created this world
Where ignorance is being taught

You created this world
While I am all you’ll never be
You’ve been drilling these
Such falsely-based philosophies
…in me

The curtain has fallen
There’s no one behind
Corrected one mistake
But I am still around

Our fight is over
My scars will leave a stain
You thought that it was all easy
But I will still remain

You created yourself
Based on nothing else but lies
You created yourself
Where all your aspiration died

You created yourself
While I am all you’ll never be
You’re deceiving me
Now I am forcing you to see
…this

The curtain has fallen
There’s no one behind
Corrected one mistake
But I am still around

Our fight is over
My scars will leave a stain
You thought that it was all easy
But I will still remain

Take my hand
I’m sinking
I’m reaching out for you

Can’t you see what you’ve done to all of us?
Torturing me has no use here anymore

I followed your rules
A willing fool
Branded by shame

My soul suffers from your hostile ways
I bear so many scars, hit me hard
Time to change we have to rearrange
For this has gone too far, way too far

Creating mew laws and living by unwritten rules
Restricting us

My soul suffers from your hostile ways
I can’t let go

Creating new spins on ancient creed to fit
your views
Denying us

The curtain has fallen
There’s no one behind
Corrected one mistake
But I am still around

Our fight is over
My scars will leave a stain
You thought that it was all easy
But I will still remain

Your time is over
I’m taking back what’s mine
You thought that you could keep me
Under your thumb and mind

Take my hand
I’m sinking
I’m reaching out for you
In my dying dream

Written by: Simone Simons, and Ad Sluijter
Released: The Divine Conspiracy (2007), Epica

Part VIII: Living a Lie

Don’t believe what you see
Believe in me and my reality
I am a man of God

God, can’t you give that I am begging you

Don’t believe what you hear
Believe in me and I will reappear
Salvation here at last

At last, I want you, answers all my questions

Is a desert running dry
Deep inside
You refuse to face the facts
But pray for life
Find salvation’s in this phrase
We will wait for the day
You began ending a way

Don’t believe what you see
Believe in me and my reality
Infinity in me

This is the end all and be our last hope

Is a desert running dry
Deep inside
You refuse to face the facts
But pray for life
Find salvation’s in this phrase
We will wait for the day
You began ending a way

Domine Jesu,
Demitte nobis debita nostra
Salva nos ab igne inferiore
Perduc in caelum omnes animas
Praesertim eas, quae misericordiae tuae maxime indigent
In nomine patris, et filii, et spiritus sancti
Amen

Give me our lie
You and I will devour,
Our senses bring us to forget
Children, sons and you have seen
And our cross, it gives us hope

Is a desert running dry
Deep inside
You refuse to face the facts
But pray for life
Find salvation’s in this phrase
We will wait for the day
You began ending a way
And we wait for the day
To discover there is no way
I can’t wait and this play
Is the bitter way to wait to end this lie

Written by: Simone Simons, and Mark Jansen
Released: The Divine Conspiracy (2007), Epica

Part IX: Fools of Damnation

Bow for him, bow to the supremacy
Bow for him, at last

You do believe, so I can say
that you are owned by me

Bow for him, bow to the supremacy
Bow for him, at last

You do believe, so let us pray
For all those fools that be fooled

Fool, dance with me again
I am your destiny, mark my words
Don’t you ever disagree?
Fool, kneel for me again
I am your agony, walk my way
I will never set you free

Live for me,
Longing fool
Bow to the supremacy
Live for me
You won’t regret
Die for the divinity

Bow for me,
Bow to the supremacy
Bow for me
At last

You do believe, so you display
All that we want to see

Fool, dance with me again
I am your destiny, mark my words
Don’t you ever disagree?
Fool, kneel for me again
I am your agony, walk my way
I will never set you free

Bow for me, just do it
Walk my way, just to serve me
Bow for me, just do it
Kneel for me, and obey me

A humble genuflection before the unrushing ascendency
Not able to turn back, anymore

Bow to me,
Bow to the supremacy
Kneel for me
Down for the divinity
Come to me, bow for me
Just do it now, to the supremacy
Kneel for me, down for me
Just do it now, for the divinity

Believing is the cure
Religion is like opium
You’d better feed them all
Before they start eating you

Written by: Mark Jansen
Released: The Divine Conspiracy (2007), Epica