Peccatum was formed by singer Ihriel (Heidi Solberg Tveitan), her husband I… Read Full Bio ↴Peccatum was formed by singer Ihriel (Heidi Solberg Tveitan), her husband Ihsahn (of the well-known black metal band Emperor), and her brother Lord PZ (Source of Tide) in Norway. The group released five albums between their inception in 1998 and their split on March 4, 2006. Lost in Reverie, released in 2004 after Lord PZ's departure, demonstrated a change in a more classical, avant-garde and musically opaque direction.

Lost in Reverie and the 2005 EP The Moribund People were both produced under the label Mnemosyne Productions, owned and operated by Ihriel and Ihsahn themselves.

On March 4th, 2006 Peccatum split, leaving room for Ihriel to continue with Star of Ash and Ihsahn to work on his solo work. They still work together in their other project Hardingrock.

Stillness
Peccatum Lyrics

Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴

Sickening, sickening place
framed snapshots of buzzing stillness
noisy polaroid faces
with tick, tack clock voices
with crawling on my skin words
to drown outside
my feverish head
away away away

to go under in
a silent sea of nothing
gone gone gone
paranoid, paranoid wish
all feed the claustrophobic storm
broken down in molecule faces
with tick, tack clock presence
with crawling on my heart eyes
to drown outside
my feverish head
away away away
to go under in
a silent sea of nothing
gone gone gone
as a delirious Don Quixote
I enter the shadow
of spinning windmills

ghostly spin, away but not towards
earthly ride, away but not towards.

Overall Meaning

The lyrics to Peccatum's song Stillness convey the experience of being trapped in a suffocating and stagnant environment. The opening line, "sickening, sickening place," instantly sets a nauseating tone that continues throughout the song. The "framed snapshots of buzzing stillness" suggest a kind of suspended animation, where everything appears static and lifeless. The people who populate this environment are characterized as "noisy polaroid faces," indicating that they are only superficially animated, and their voices are reduced to the "tick, tack" of a clock. This suggests a sense of overwhelming boredom and oppressiveness.

As the song continues, the singer expresses a deep desire to escape this environment, represented by the repeated refrain of "away away away," as if she is trying to attain distance from the world around her. She describes the sensation of being overcome by the oppressive nature of her surroundings, with words "crawling on my skin" and "crawling on my heart eyes." The language is visceral, with a palpable sense of discomfort and anxiety.

The final lines of the song reference Don Quixote and his fight against the windmills. The singer is portrayed as delirious, suggesting a feverish state of mind, and the windmills are a metaphor for the obstacles in her life. Despite her overwhelming desire to escape, she cannot resist the temptation to fight against the very thing that oppresses her. This final image leaves the listener with a sense of unease, as if the singer is caught in an endless cycle of trying to break free.

Line by Line Meaning

Sickening, sickening place
The location is unpleasant and disturbing

framed snapshots of buzzing stillness
Pictures of tranquil scenes capture moments frozen in time

noisy polaroid faces
Faces in photographs that appear to be alive and speaking

with tick, tack clock voices
Voices that sound like clocks ticking away

with crawling on my skin words
Words that make me feel uncomfortable and uneasy

to drown outside
To escape from the external world and find peace within myself

my feverish head
My mind is restless and uneasy

away away away
I want to go far away from this place

to go under in
To fall into a state of oblivion

a silent sea of nothing
A place of absolute peace, quiet, and emptiness

gone gone gone
Everything that used to exist is now permanently gone