The Raven’s Altar!

Hallow!
Hallowed!

[Intro] [Above the gloom, a dual-vocal attack—a high-pitched witch’s shriek and a cavernous, booming guttural] At the Hallowed Shrine, the All-Father blinds the sun, and the Phantom Queen weaves your shroud!

[Verse 1] Beneath the jagged peaks where the iron hemlocks grow, The Shrine is waiting in the valley down below. They don’t pray for mercy, and they don’t pray for light, They feed the ancient shadows in the belly of the night. With a gallows-tree for Odin and a basin for the Morrigan, They harvest every spirit just to let the feast begin again. A cult of bone and briar, of the spear and of the wing, To the masters of the slaughter, eternally they will sing.

[Chorus] The eye in the cauldron, the blood on the spear, The Hallowed Shrine is where you house all of your fear! He hangs the world in around a noose of despair, picking out the eyes from the evil dead lying there. A union of crows and a kingdom of dust, In the gods of the murder, in which we place all our trust!

[Verse 2] The All-Father sits on a throne of broken shields, Surveying all the corpses that the crimson harvest yields. They bartered off his mercy for the secrets of the grave, To make every living creature a hollow-hearted slave. When the Morrigan, stands in front of man, the laundress at the ford, Washing out the armor of the victims of the sword. She isn't just a phantom, she’s faeries blood in the vein, The goddess of the carnage and the mistress who healed your forgotten pain.

[Chorus] The eye in the cauldron, the blood on the spear, The Hallowed Shrine is where you house all of your fear! He hangs the world in a noose of despair, She picks the eyes from the dead lying there. A union of crows and a kingdom of dust, In the gods of the murder, in which we place all our trust!

[Bridge - The tempo slams into a tectonic, slow-motion breakdown. The guitars use a dissonant, screeching "crow-call" harmonic] NINE NIGHTS HANGING! NINE LIVES BLED! THE HALLOWED SHRINE REQUIRES THE DEAD! ODIN GIVES THE VISION! MORRIGAN TAKES THE BREATH! THERE IS NO SALVATION IN THE GARDEN OF DEATH! SPILL THE WELL! RAISE THE WOLF! BLEGH!

[Verse 3] The initiates are kneeling in the circle of the stone, Carving out the runes upon a fresh and bone. They are the children of blood, chosen of the raven and the hood, Doing things the righteous never could or ever would. The Shrine is not a building, it’s a hunger in the soul, a hallowed need for absolute control. The sky is turning black as the feathers start to fall, The Hallowed Shrine is coming for the spirits, and for us all.

[Outro - The wall of sound collapses into the solitary, mournful bagpipe drone from the intro. The sound of a thousand wings taking flight fills the room] a contract for the dead, The debt is paid in marrow...

Hallowed.

Celtic Folk Metal, Melodic Deathcore, Blackmetal, male. 240-280 BPM