When The Guns Fell Silent

(album: Woe To The Vanquished - 2017)

[I Prelude: The Troops]

"O, my brave companions
When your souls flock silently away
And the eyeless dead shame that the wild beast of battle on the ridge
Death will stand grieving in that field of war
Since your unvanquished hardihood is spent
And through some mooned Valhalla there shall pass
Batallions and batallions, scarred from hell
The unreturning army that was youth
The legions who have suffered
And are dust"
[-Siegfried Sassoon Prelude: The Toops]
[spoken by John Kevill]

[II Attrition]

March through the mud and the rain
The soldiers disappearing into the gray
Hopeless, they look to the sky
For years they have bled on the line

I saw them advancing
Into the smoke and the fire
They were cut down
I saw, as the brave men...

Died, by their thousands, forgotten
Their names carved upon a white cross
The rows stretch into the horizon
And no words can speak of the loss

I saw warriors broken
Upon the anvil of Verdum
Unreturning, the legions
Who suffered and are dust

[III Voie Sacree (The Sacred Way)]

Our tattered banners fly in the wind
Over the top, we charge again
The war will be won, and God's on our side
But my brave companions, why must you all die
Oh why?

[IV The Voice of the Guns]

WE ARE THE GUNS!
Saw you our work, the flashes of light
WE ARE THE ONES!
Filling the graves, the ghosts on the firing line
NOW IT IS DONE!
Our voice will be heard in the ages to come
Husbands or lovers, fathers or sons
We break them
Yes, We Are the Guns!

[V All Quiet]

And when the guns fell silent, at last
There's nothing that remains of the past
The world that I knew is dead and gone
My soul is left in ruins
And I cannot see the dawn