Since the release of their home-recorded debut ep, “The Greater Tide,” in December, 2010, Attalus have established themselves as one of Raleigh's reputable local bands. Known for passionate live performances and a rigorous work ethic, they have already played alongside bands such as Hawthorne Heights, Anarbor, Amely, Sanctus Real, Conditions, and Divided By Friday – along with local friends, The Future is Me and the Ethnographers. While Attalus continues to increase their influence in North Carolina, they are also ready to step out and reach a wider audience.
The first step to accomplishing that is to release a new concept album called Post Tenebras Lux (after darkness, light). During the planning for this album, the band realized they didn't have the money needed to accomplish it. After only ten days of raising money, friends and fans had donated 3,000 dollars to the cause! The strength of this support inspired Attalus to make the album bigger and better than it initially intended to be. When first conceived, it was meant to be a 5-song Summer EP. But during the writing process it evolved into a full-length album composed of the most musically complex and lyrically stimulating songs Attalus has written to date.
Post Tenebras Lux will deal with some of the difficult issues that every person at some point and in some way struggles with. Issues such as the intellectual and spiritual struggle between faith and reason or the timeless philosophical question of why God allows evil are just a few. From the dark, riveting head-banger, “Night,” which starts off the album to the dynamic, piano-driven ballad, “Let There be Light,” which concludes the album, the listener will be taken on a musical rollercoaster while being forced to intellectually deal with his or her own conceptions and misconceptions of faith, doubt, and God's grace.
Post Tenebras Lux. Out Now.
Night
Attalus Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Writing darkness on the walls to try and block the Sun
Pebbles, twigs and straw – day by day we bring them
Darkened by our pride we can’t see what we’ve become
But shadows of Providence dance on our walls of confidence
Can we not hear the words they tell? (These walls are imprisoning, why aren’t we listening?)
We fight as humanists; we close our eyes and raise our fists
We’re putting God into a box we call out-dated
Throwing faith away because we say it makes us blind
“Religion is a crutch – a drug to ease the jaded”
So we claim that “God is dead” and then proclaim ourselves divine
We’re hiding
We’re hiding
We’re hiding from the dawn. (All is vanity, all is vanity, oh dear humanity, where is our sanity?)
But we’re dying
We’re dying
We’re dying for God to turn the lights on. (All is vanity, all is vanity, oh dear humanity, where is your sanity?)
The lyrics of Attalus's song "Night" express a theme of human pride and arrogance, which has resulted in the rejection of faith and suppression of spirituality. The lines "We're building castles in a cave we call reason / Writing darkness on the walls to try and block the Sun" paint a picture of the human mind trying to rationalize everything, but ultimately failing to understand the true nature of the world. The use of the metaphor of "castles" underscores the idea of human ego building walls, shutting out the possibilities of spirituality and illumination.
The lyrics laments on how humans have become so blinded by their own pride that they cannot see the shadows of Providence dancing on the walls of their confidence. They have closed their eyes and raised their fists, fighting as humanists. The song challenges the listeners to question the assertion that man is the measure of all things, which is often the justification for the prideful stance. The questioning is evident in the lines "We fight as humanists; we close our eyes and raise our fists / But if this is enlightenment, why is it dark as hell?"
The second verse of the song continues to express the theme of human arrogance by highlighting our inclination to put God in a box that we call outdated. The act of throwing faith away is seen as a deliberate attempt to claim divinity for ourselves. However, at the heart of this rejection of faith is fear - fear of being vulnerable, fear of others, and fear of what might be beyond our comprehension. The repetition of the lines "We're hiding / We're hiding / We're hiding from the dawn" and "We're dying / We're dying / We're dying for God to turn the lights on" underline the fearfulness that is central to the human predicament.
Overall, the song can be seen as a critique of modernist thought and its resulting humanistic tendencies, which are based on a limited view of the world. It encourages the listener to question the assumptions of the dominant cultural narratives and to seek truth beyond the darkness created by human pride.
Line by Line Meaning
We’re building castles in a cave we call reason
We construct intricate justifications that are based on faulty or incomplete information
Writing darkness on the walls to try and block the Sun
We deliberately choose to remain in ignorance, refusing to acknowledge the truth
Pebbles, twigs and straw – day by day we bring them
We create our own reality from feeble and inconsequential elements
Darkened by our pride we can’t see what we’ve become
Our arrogance blinds us from recognizing our own flaws and shortcomings
But shadows of Providence dance on our walls of confidence
The subtle presence of divinity can be seen even amidst our most stubborn beliefs
Can we not hear the words they tell? (These walls are imprisoning, why aren’t we listening?)
Why do we choose to ignore the messages that defy our established beliefs and limitations?
We fight as humanists; we close our eyes and raise our fists
We fiercely defend our own beliefs and ideals, while rejecting those that do not agree with us
But if this is enlightenment, why is it dark as hell?
Is our supposed intellectual superiority not leading us into greater darkness and despair?
We’re putting God into a box we call out-dated
We limit our understanding of the divine and its workings based on incomplete and archaic ideas
Throwing faith away because we say it makes us blind
We reject the importance of faith and spiritual conviction because we believe it hinders rational thought
“Religion is a crutch – a drug to ease the jaded”
We perceive religion as a temporary coping mechanism rather than a meaningful guiding force
So we claim that “God is dead” and then proclaim ourselves divine
We declare the death of divine intervention, while elevating ourselves to the level of gods
We’re hiding
We are afraid of confronting the truth and our own limitations
We’re dying
Our ignorance and arrogance is leading us to our own destruction
We’re dying for God to turn the lights on. (All is vanity, all is vanity, oh dear humanity, where is your sanity?)
We are desperately seeking spiritual enlightenment, and the hope of divine guidance to lead us out of darkness
Contributed by William V. Suggest a correction in the comments below.