The second single off the upcoming EP Mercenary Notes Pt 2 which will go fully live on March 14 2025. Features Reeves Gabrels (The Cure, David Bowie) on lead guitar.
Radiation Blues is a slow, Tom Waits-inspired beat-poet journey with heavy, deliberate beats. A spiritual sequel to Slaves Rebuild from Mercenary Notes Pt. 1, it incorporates some of the same haunting samples (“What it is, what it shall be, what it was”) but ventures into new sonic terrain, weaving in more introspective lyrics. Once again, Reeves returns, adding unsettling, explosive guitar pyrotechnics to the mix.
While Slaves Rebuild had deliberately abstract lyrics, Warning Signs confronts the dangers of ignoring signs in our unraveling social fabric until it’s too late. Here, the narrator wonders how much of this is intentional, musing, “The warning signs are by design, and that’s gnawing on my mind.” The track critiques a culture saturated with soundbites and short-form messages, erasing nuance and context.
The narrator is older, more weathered, cautioning, “If no one will tell ya, it’s gonna be the miles that kill ya.” This line draws from my experience in endurance sports, where my coach would say, “The climbs are tough, but it’s the miles that’ll kill ya”—a reminder to conserve energy over long distances. That analogy resonates here, lending depth to the track’s meditation on endurance, struggle, and the weight of accumulated experience.
If you’re lost no one can show ya
Gonna be the miles that kill ya
You drag that bag of bones
Through scenes all sepia tones
One day’s reminisces
dreams and your wishes
Don’t look large looking back
As they did going off the tracks
I don’t mean to offend
things you recommend
I know the other side
It’s gnawing on my mind
Conclusions seem foregone
In your Soundbyte lexicon
Stories told favor the bold
And the truth ain’t set upon
There’s violence in the air
We kill what isn’t there
The bill of goods misunderstood
So Buyers better beware
I ain’t gonna go along
With this power trip you’re on
Leading the blind I can’t get behind
And that’s gnawing on my mind
It’s twighlight for whose left
Stumbling on their quest
Past mid day for what you gotta say
Faults adequately addressed
The existential mission
Coming through your television
Dispossession beatin down depression
As if anyone knows what’s next
So if you want some sympathy
Or the time of day from me
You’re gonna have to find another place to hide and that’s gnawing on my mind
You keep ‘em all in business
And all these things are vicious
The warning signs are by design
And that’s gnawing on my mind …...more
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