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1. The Beekeeper - Dessa
Did you ever swallow something in your dreams? Did you ever see a sky filled with strange satellites? Did you wake up and reach for the familiar, only for everything you knew to catch fire?
Did you ever not wake up at all?
We are the Education Protocol. We climb the twisted ladder of your cells; we haunt your digital text; we hide in your hat. We are the jagged teeth that trip the tumblers of your mind. you will not know our triggers.
2. White Waves - Shearwater
The fog came up from the sea, like the waves, like the tide. Was it looking for something? Or was somebody looking for it?
There was no forecast. There were no screams. There was no sound. Only the fog. It crept in, and it crept out. The people walked, and the people died. Then they walked again.
3. Things That Scare Me - Neko Case
Kingsmouth might be a nice place, if it weren't for the zombies. Or maybe it would just fool you into thinking it was nice. Not all of the corpses are recent, and some of them crawled out of mass graves.
"Geez, you never saw anything like this in the cop shows, well maybe on cable. Not the network ones. You wouldn't know it from looking out there, but before that wicked bad fog rolled in, Kingsmouth was a sleepy little burg. Nothing stronger on the streets than a hot cup of coffee and chocolate glazed donuts from Suzie's. The occasional DUI or domestic disturbance ... human sacrifice. But every town has a dark side, right?"
4. Soufi - Eyptian Project
The sand get everywhere. It's in your shoes, your hair, your mouth. It's like the Filth, but the buzzing in your skull doesn't make you immune.
"Why would anyone come to this town, in the middle of the desert? I came here to escape, to hide. Unless you were born here, or want to die here, I can think of no other reason to live in this place."
5. Glass and Stone - TOR
After an age, the stillness of the buried city is finally broken. The silence feels oppressive, as if nothing here is really alive. Not even you.
"I have failed them, and I have failed you. This terrible city was supposed to remain hidden for all time ... but perhaps it was inevitable. Secrets cannot be kept forever. "
6. Iron - Woodkid
All the clichés are in attendance. Vampires. Werewolves. Ghouls. Even fairies and fauns. The deep forest, the deeper snow. While you stand there scoffing, the clichés will kill you and make something trite out of your corpse.
"You're a long way from home ... and not quite dressed for the occasion. Your superiors, they did not explain it is cold in the Carpathians, da? No matter. First we deal with the vampires, then the frostbite."
7. Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This) - Emily Browning
The song that the prison sings is sweet. Do you join in, or do you break the harmony? It's entirely up to you, of course.
"Our imprisonment has blinded us. We're insensitive to the needs of humans, and we've forgotten what it is to be free. We do what we do simply because we are in pain. Please forgive us."
8. Unmarked Helicopters - Soul Coughing
Solomon Island hasn't changed, but the way that you look at it has. It seems small after everything else you've seen. You examine the inhabitants carefully. None of the ones you've spoken to have sprouted tentacles yet. You try to decide if this is a relief or not.
"I don't trust anyone. No one at all. There's military personnel on the island. There were parachutes in the middle of the night. They're most likely working with the Orochis. Or for them. You'd have thought that if they could get people onto the island, they could also get people off the island. But... maybe they don't want to help us. So what are they afraid of? The truth? Us? Are they afraid of us? Are we - are we infected?"
9. Pandora - Conjure One
You can't help wondering if this happened the last time. Perhaps the brave hero who tried to stop the other Filth Bomb just didn't manage to jump across the gaps in the train roof and get to the engine in time. Still, you put on your fedora and take out your whip. It's nice to have fun saving the world.
"We go blow the shit out of train!"
10. The World is Not Enough - Garbage
When you first saw the Council agent, you got the feeling that you already knew her. Of course it's much worse than that. Not merely the archetype of the femme fatale, but the thing itself, like emerging from Plato's cave to find a woman with a tight jumpsuit and a bad Russian accent trying to kill you.
"No, my dear, I do not expect you to die. But there is something exquisitely humiliating in the agony of a hobbled immortal. Don't you think?"
11. We're Much Preferred Customers - The Dissociatives
Venice is rotting, or blooming into something else. It's hard to tell. The hallways crumble, but the virtual reality equipment is pristine. You run from one group of imaginary people to another, trying to save their imaginary lives. You wish there was a scenario that let you slaughter them all instead.
The Council weakens. A worm slithers inside. We see the coming betrayal, for what is time to us? We stand outside. Everything has happened. Everything is happening. The echoes screech, "Ruin-ruin-ruin-ruin." All that potential strength, and yet what can they do? It is like relocating a desert with a thousand forks. What will unite them? Perhaps something must go horribly wrong again...
We will be there, sweetling. Will you see us in the half-light?
12. Tengaku - Wagakki Band
Tokyo isn't empty. That would be too easy. Everywhere you look, the imitation of life continues. The Filth-things mill about aimlessly, as if they'd just forgotten what they were doing, and any moment they might remember to go back to work, school, home.
Have you ever heard a fire alarm in the middle of the day and felt relief? Not fear for your safety, just a sigh of relief that the daily routine is broken - the pre-programmed tedium that makes wind-up anatomy toys think they're real. None of the living want to admit a tiny pang of relief in the wake of the Bomb. Don't have to go to that job you hate, today. Don't have to watch that game show that bores you, tonight. Whose fingers haven't itched once or twice while passing a fire alarm? I'm certainly guilty, Chuck.
13. The Gardener - Dresden Dolls
You almost feel sorry for John. But not the way that you feel sorry for the children, the ones on the top floor, not even holding hands. Some day soon the Morninglight will be harvested, but perhaps not in the way that they imagine.
"Then we found John. The perfect man to spread the Great Message. He's still out there. Waiting in the spaces between the silences. I can feel him watching me in the static on the screens and telling me that the mission in nearly over. The message is almost free."
14. A Retinue of Moons/The Infidel is Me - Rasputina
You climb to the top of the tower, hand over hand, wading through rabbit's blood and Filth, looking for your final confrontation with the Big Bad. When you reach your goal, something much worse is there. Of course it is. You didn't expect to win, did you?
Maybe you did win. Your new wings are beautiful. Out of the corner of your eye, they seem to turn colours that only a bee's eyes can see.
"You. I smell the Dreaming Ones upon you. They offered you gifts. I smell your choices. Reap what you have sown."
15. Watershed - Vienna Teng
Lilith is gone. The Filth abides. All of this has happened before. All of this will happen again.
The Filth is only the transmitted, not the transmitter - the excremental shadow of something else. What dreamt it? What stirs and sputters and lurks, as big as planets, in the infinite shade between cancer cells?
Have you seen them, sweetling? Have they noticed you noticing them? Once you see the hungry sky, it sees you. All futures point to a stratosphere of tentacles.
16. Hidden Camera Show - Tom McRae
Just keep your head down for a while. Maybe they'll look past you, towards the strange things in the sky.
There is a secret world. Everything is true.