Mark Morton - Anesthetic
Produced by Josh Wilbur
“Reveal” produced by Josh Wilbur and Mark Morton
Executive Produced by Jake Oni
Mixed by Josh Wilbur
Engineered by Josh Wilbur
Additional Engineering by Paul Suarez, Jay Robbins & Roy Mayorga
Mastered by Brad Blackwood
Recorded at The Mill Studio in Grand Cayman and Hybrid Studios in Santa Ana, CA
WPP Records / Spinefarm Records
“Cross Off” also recorded at NRG Studios in North Hollywood, CA
“Reveal” also recorded at The Magpie Cage in Baltimore, MD
1. CROSS OFF
2. SWORN APART
3. AXIS
4. THE NEVER
5. SAVE DEFIANCE
6. BLUR
7. BACK FROM THE DEAD
8. REVEAL
9. IMAGINARY DAYS
10. THE TRUTH IS DEAD
“Cross Off”
Written by Mark Morton, Chester Bennington, Jake Oni and Josh Wilbur
Vocals – Chester Bennington
Guitars – Mark Morton
Bass – Paolo Gregoletto
Drums – Alex Bent
__
Cross off the days gone by.
Wasting away, a self-inflicted, slow decay,
What should've been, what never was,
became the end for both of us,
Heavy is the hand that points the finger,
Heavy is the heart that’s filled with anger,
so lay them all to waste,
Years you decided to erase,
And cross off the days.
So black out and hide behind the lines,
keep staring down the sun and hope
the light will finally blind your eyes from seeing.
Cross off the days gone by.
Cutting free, the phantom limb was part of me,
You have lived, you have lost,
the separation's worth the cost
Heavy are the words that go unspoken,
Heavy are the promises now broken.
Will you learn to love the taste
of the destruction in your wake?
Cross off the days.
Making my way back from the madness,
shifting my thoughts from the blackness,
and the sadness but the fact is,
i'm swinging through life like a clinched fist,
Fuck sanity, I want to bleed,
can't kill the pain, its everything,
its all I feel, its what I breathe,
Turn the hate I breed into what I need
Heavy is the hand that points the finger.
Heavy is the heart that's filled with anger.
Did you survey everything you laid to waste
and cross off the days?
“The Truth Is Dead”
Written by Mark Morton, Josh Wilbur, Randy Blythe and Alissa White-Gluz
Vocals – Randy Blythe / Alissa White-Gluz
Guitar – Mark Morton
Bass – David Ellefson
Drums – Roy Mayorga
__
Long gone are the days of right and wrong,
Complacent overcast
Pried eyes, a fodder feast to glut the minds
Shots fired, watch the soap box rise
A forked tongue, a French kiss
Ill winds blowing blacklists
Left is right, and black is white
Buying face, selling resourcing coins and cashing checks
Deep states and surface illusions
Blank space and buried collisions
Hold my hand and fill my head
Ring in nose, still unopposed
The truth is dead
Blessed bliss, binary codes
Ignorance and lethal loads
Shield the rich and kill the sick
Snake oil rigs anointed
Trust fund pigs duly appointed
Every wall a window, every door a lock
Heads in the sand, we feign oblivion
Welcoming landscapes of shadows and fallacies
Total eclipse, more appealing than reality
“Imaginary Days”
Written by Mark Morton, Josh Wilbur and Mark Morales
Vocals – Mark Morton / Mark Morales
Guitar – Mark Morton
Bass – Mike Inez
Drums – Ray Luzier
__
Take me in, Take me in and make me ill
Locked away, Locked away can you make me well (again)
It's just as if we'd scripted our demise
Meticulous, disaster by design
There's nowhere left to go and no one left you know
because yesterday's a lifetime away
Tomorrow's just as well a story they can tell
A fable of imaginary days.
Take my breath, Take my breath and the world falls still
Suffocate, separate virtual from real (again)
And if it's me just waiting for a sign,
then let me be the one that's left behind.
“Sworn Apart”
Written by Mark Morton, Jacoby Shaddix and Josh Wilbur
Vocals – Jacoby Shaddix
Guitar – Mark Morton
Bass – Mark Morton
Drums – Alex Bent
__
I picked you up where I put you down so lost and found
Another trip on the misery go round
Still pictures of life that was, it’s more than us
We stood and watched but we never made a sound
Inside it’s dead silence
We can’t come back from nowhere
We can’t come back from this
Sworn apart, have we fallen so far from our stars
Tear them all down and walk away
To wind up here alone
Holding out, closing in
Crawling as the end begins
Only now you’re too far away to find your way back home
When did we start believing lies, so terrified
A competition to be most victimized
Tied down and twisted up, a broken trust
No common thread left to stitch up this divide
Still waiting, light fading
We won’t come back from nowhere,
We won’t come back from this.
Casting shadows, abstract lines
We lay in wait and bide our time.
We stood and watched and never made a sound
“Axis”
Written by Mark Morton and Mark Lanegan
Vocals – Mark Lanegan / Myles Kennedy
Guitar – Mark Morton / Marc Ford
Bass – Mike Inez
Drums – Steve Gorman
__
I came down with a fever.
The catacombs they were filled.
Lucifer within my larynx.
Clothing us a covered kiss.
Baby set my head on fire.
Every man is born to die.
The captain called me out on the carpet boys. You know I got a tear in my eye.
I have been lost and wandering.
A wanderer I remain. Met Judas in West Texas. Tried to take my name.
Now I am lost and wandering. And wandering I am blind.
Will the moon come off it’s axis, before I lose my mind?
I came down with a sickness.
Pouring down just like rain.
Red red sun in the evening.
Red red heart full of pain
Baby set my head on fire.
Every man is born to die.
The captain called me out on the carpet boys.
You know I got a tear in my eye.
I have been lost and wandering.
A wanderer I remain.
Met Judas in West Texas. Tried to take my name.
Blood is worth much more than money, as a poison crown.
See the snake that bit me honey, is going to take me down.
Now I am lost and wandering. And wandering I am blind.
Will the moon come off it’s axis before I lose my mind?
“Save Defiance”
Written by Mark Morton, Myles Kennedy and Josh Wilbur
Vocals – Myles Kennedy
Guitar – Mark Morton
Bass – Mike Inez
Drums – Ray Luzier
__
Into the last refrain, as your empire falls,
World in decay your backs against the wall.
Tell me now is it too late
Tell me now who’ll pay the cost
For all the times you’ve disengaged
Tomorrow could be lost.
Stop what you started.
Open your eyes.
The truth is the hardest thing to deny.
Save defiance and hope you’ve got one last shot.
Blood of tyrants running cold, they will never stop.
Save defiance, you alone will resist in time.
Break alliance to behold shifting paradigms.
There is no time to waste.
This you can’t deny.
The truth you embraced was only just a lie.
Now do you see you’re betrayed.
Now you must keep your resolve,
Or everything you sacrificed to keep will forever be dissolved.
Stop what they started.
Open your eyes.
They’re reaping the harvest and bleeding you dry.
This is your season.
Take heed and rise.
The battle has started.
(With your back against the wall)
Fight for your life.
——
Written by Mark Morton, Myles Kennedy
and Josh Wilbur
Vocals – Myles Kennedy
Guitar – Mark Morton
Bass – Mike Inez
Drums – Ray Luzier
“Reveal”
Written by Mark Morton, Jean-Paul Guster, Chris Brooks, Maeemah Maddox and Yanni Papadopoulos
Vocals – Naeemah Maddox
Guitar – Mark Morton
Bass – Yanni Papadopoulos
Drums – Jean-Paul Gaster
Keys – Chris Brooks
__
Could be all for sale
Or could be smoke and mirrors
The end is growing near
Or could be smoke and mirrors
Say who you are, go set your truth
Don’t be the root in another’s plan
Say how you feel, and then reveal
You may not be who you are, (you are)
Right at this moment
Right at this moment
Right at this moment .... in time.
Go and dig a well and hide as you abide
See I’m fragile as a shell and echo like a bell
(and echo like a bell) ( woah, you)
Say who you are, go set your truth
Don’t be the fool in another’s plan (you may not be who you are)
Say how you feel, and then reveal
You may not be who you are, (you are)
Right at this moment, (You are)
Right at this moment, (You are)
Right at this moment .... putting it up for sale
really you have ...your own mind
You can think for yourself
Echo it like a bell and present yourself
You can think for yourself
In a line of thought that is not your own
You can think for yourself
Echo it like a bell and present yourself
You can think for yourself
Serving the throne in the hopes of getting a bone
You can think for yourself
Echo it like a bell and present yourself
You can think for yourself
In a line of thought that is all your own
Could be all for sale, but are you
Could be all for sale, but but but are you
Could be all for sale, all for sale
Could be all for sale, are you sale? (Woah, oh no)
Could be all for sale
You can think for yourself
Echo it like a bell and present yourself
You can think for yourself
Could be all for sale
Look at you - serving the throne in the hopes of getting a bone
“The Never”
Written by Mark Morton, Josh Wilbur, Jake Oni
Vocals – Chuck Billy / Jake Oni
Guitar – Mark Morton
Bass – David Ellefson
Drums – Roy Mayorga
__
Digging myself out of the prison that we made
Tether the indignation to a passive rage
I know I’m no better so paint on your halo And hide from your shadow and practice everything you’ll say
Took time to find out gold will rust
No one to trust
A crisis to deflect the blame.
More of the same.
Losing all of your light.
Listen how the scream chokes to a whisper
Stand up and testify, fear is just demise born of the never.
So trapped and paralyzed a distant stare reprieve
The loudest silence cries with no recovery
Silver line the lies and paint on your halo
And run from tomorrow and regret everything you’ll say.
Took time to find out gold will rust
No on to trust
A crisis to deflect the blame
Take all you can
And I am the reason for all that you’ve lost
A gangrene like cancer eating away at the soul
Suffering the one that’s left
Exploiting emotions, they’re spinning out of control
“Blur”
Written by Mark Morton, Josh Wilbur and Mike Inez
Vocals – Mark Morales
Guitar – Mark Morton
Bass – Mike Inez
Drums – Steve Gorman
__
It's just a phase, in time, it will subside,
Inevitably take my place along the line,
Losing my faith and faking through the days
Search for the motive keeping me alive,
Passing time
There’s nothing left to see and nothing to return
So go and set it free…one time around the sun
Followed the path along the broken roads
We know the weight of all the sorrow we can't hold
Not what we were, it's all become a blur
We're growing numb out in the cold, but can't let go
Patiently waiting for the last reprise
Anticipation of the slowly rising tide
Keep locked away, a world to isolate
Pretending I can do more than survive
Wasted time
I sit and hold my breath, and I scare myself to death
There must be some attraction to this ritual i've kept
Crawling through my time, I watch the days unwind
Sifting through the remnants, I know what I will find
“Back From The Dead”
Written by Mark Morton, Josh Todd and Josh Wilbur
Vocals – Josh Todd
Guitar – Mark Morton
Bass – Mike Inez
Drums – Roy Mayorga
__
Stand up, but don’t keep the prison inside you
You’re getting so close to a break through, stabbing the back of your own crew
Only take what you need
Stand up, what you do to yourself is a weakness
You’re so fucking numb you can’t see this
The things that went down on a secret,
Blinded by greed
Slipping myself up above the floor
Maybe I deserve this but I don’t see you anymore
There’s people talking to me in my head
I don’t know what they’re after
Lost my motivation and I lost a lot of friends
I walked away when the shit got out of control, it was a sticky situation that was stealing my soul,
Got in a whole lot of trouble and I lost my friends
I’m coming back from the dead again, back from the dead again.
You’re fucked. Maybe this shit doesn’t serve you. The conflict is bigger than I knew. Throw all this away, that what I do. The chaos is coming
You’re fucked. You burned every bridge now you’re desperate. Their coming to make you regret this. Get out while you can take a long trip. They know that you’re running.
Deflect your direction, there’s no hidden message, I know you have weakness, it’s still in your mind.
The chaos is coming, I can’t keep on running, I’m staring catastrophe right in the eye. Stand up.
