Like most Fireaxe works, "Eternal Devotion to the Dark Goddess" is steeped in meaning with a number of recurring themes woven in and out of the individual tracks. I strive to make listening to Fireaxe not only interesting on a musical level but on emotional and intellectual levels as well. Thus my CDs tend to end up packed with insightful passages which can be difficult to figure out and pieced together into a cohesive whole. Part of that is because the content is very cerebral and part of that is because I am simply a weird individual with an unusual view of the world. So I feel the need to explain some of the weirdness in the CD as well as unearth some of the more profound themes. I'll be discussing all the tracks in turn in The Burning Blade over the coming year, but also feel free to e-mail me questions about things in the CD which you might be finding hard to understand, like what the heck is F.U.D. all about?

First, a disclaimer. "Eternal Devotion to the Dark Goddess" is a very dark CD and the protagonist can hardly be called heroic. I wouldn't even call him a "dark hero" since he doesn't fit the stereo- typical image of someone with character flaws or a troubled past who fights the good fight anyway. I don't consider him to be a role model in any form. In the story the protagonist does a great number of cruel, violent, and despicable things, often described in vivid detail and accompanied by intense emotional content in the music and lyrics. I tried to make the scenes and emotions as realistic as possible and I fear that I might have made them a little too realistic causing some of you to think that perhaps I had done or at least wanted to do some of the horrible things that the protagonist does in the story. The simple answer is no to both questions. The more complicated one is that while the protagonist and I are quite similar, we are like two people who came to a crossroads and chose different paths. He chose the path to great wealth and power no matter what the cost and I chose to pursue more aesthetic way of life. Thus I can relate to him and imagine what he would do and how he would feel placed in certain situations without needing to have personal experience in those areas. I am a genuinely nice guy. I don't participate in cut-throat capitalism, I don't try to destroy those who have wronged me in some way, and a have never, ever mistreated or abused any woman in any way. Every part of the story is completely fictional including "My Angel" in its entirety. Sadly enough, even the sweet, romantic parts of that song, full of love and hope, are ones that I am not personally familiar with. Sigh. Now, on with the descriptions of the tracks.

"I Used to be Young" starts quietly, with the protagonist lamenting the loss of his youth, his strength, and all the good things that he once had. In an instant these feelings are contrasted with his current state of mind, one of an intense desire for revenge against all those who wronged him, as the music shifts sharply from calm and lyrical to powerful and intense. Here he wishes the attentions of the Dark Goddess, the personification of death, to wreak her havoc upon his enemies, granting them mercy by snuffing out their lives. Then the music becomes calm once more and in the second set of verses the protagonist continues his laments with the loss of his innocence. This is perhaps what he misses the most, as he recounts his hopes and dreams which have become a litany of broken promises. Those feelings are contrasted against the betrayal and despair that he felt as his naivety was exploited and his essence was drained out of him. Here he wishes the attentions of the Dark Goddess upon himself to take him away from an existence where nothing more awaits him but further pain and suffering. In the last part of the first half of the song he relates the following passage:

"I always knew it would come to this.
Subversion is what I do best.
I used to fear what is to come,
But now it only brings me peace."

This asks a number of questions, such as how did he come to be this way, what is going to happen next, and why doesn't he fear it anymore. These questions are answered over the course of the CD, foreshadowing the epic ending. The quote also mirrors feelings that I have had personally. In the back of my mind I have always felt that at some point down the line I will be called to account for my refusal to bow to authority. Maybe some of you feel that was as well. I'm not sure where it comes from, but I'm sure that a lot of us have had the experience of suffering at the hands of an authority figure who was obviously wrong and who perhaps even knew that he or she was wrong but could not concede the point. It's a transformational moment in your life, forcing you to decide between obedience to authority and standing up for the truth as you see it. This turns out to be the critical difference between the protagonist and the antagonist as is later revealed in "My Reflection", but I am getting ahead of myself. One thing that I'd like to add is that, like the protagonist, I'm pretty good at subversion, as this CD aptly demonstrates. I feel that it is the most subversive and ideologically corrosive Fireaxe CD of them all.

In the above quote, the protagonist also mentions that he fears what is to come and in the second half of the track, we find out what that is. I was torn between splitting this track into two tracks or keeping it as a single one. I feel that it would have worked fine both ways, and that as two tracks the first one becomes short enough to be a good candidate for airplay. However, the flow between the two parts seemed to make them inseparable and so I put them together into one track. I know that it breaks with the Fireaxe tradition of having ten tracks on a CD like "A Dream of Death" and "Lovecraftian Nightmares" do, but I was having trouble coming up with a good name for the second half as a separate track and so that turned out to be the deciding factor to keep them together as one.

One thing that I regret about the CD is that between the time that I finalized the storyline in mid-2004 and the time that I finished recording it, the topic of torture has been figuratively, if not literally, done to death in a lot of different genres. In the last few years stories about torture have been popping up all over the place. Add to that the number movies about theocratic police states that have been made recently and the end is result is that Fireaxe has ended up behind the curve. Bummer. The ideas were fresh when they went into the plot, but today they seem somewhat stale. However, I feel that the perspective that I take in "Eternal Devotion to the Dark Goddess" is different enough from the typical one portrayed in other works so that the power and meaning of the CD is not eroded by the fact that some of its themes have been overdone, and not just in fiction. I wrote the line about the "secret crimes of state" in "a place that does not exist" before it became public that my country was doing that very thing in "black sites" across eastern Europe while liberal western European countries were complicit in covering it all up. I favor my explanation for why such places exist (fear, paranoia, and cowardice in our leaders) rather than the common ones (our leaders secretly want to be dictators, and it's necessary to fight terrorism) and feel that the direction that I take on the subject breaks new ground.

In the second half of "I Used to be Young", the torture begins. Here I used the music to portray the two extremes of imprisonment in an interrogation facility: empty, dread-filled loneliness; and overwhelming pressure and force. The protagonist describes the instruments of torture in agonizing detail as his voice is backed by a pair of bass guitars and scant drumming in some of the parts while lead and solo guitars drive home the madness accompanied by a chorus of screams and the shouting of interrogators in other parts. Back and forth the song goes from quietness and dread to thunder and chaos, similar to how modern interrogation methods are practiced, until we get to the following passage:

"When they tear into my mind, they will choke on what they find.
And when they stare into my eyes, what they see will make them blind."

This is perhaps the ultimate fantasy of anyone who has ever been tortured, perhaps even more than the fantasy about being set free. How satisfying would it be to wreak revenge upon one's tormentors? In such an environment you are completely powerless and at the mercy of your captors, and no part of you, not even your inner thoughts, will remain truly yours when all is said and done. You will end up broken to pieces, mentally more than physically, and at that point you will never be truly free even if they let you go. However, for the protagonist there is no value in being set free as he has no life left to go back to. He has only one purpose left in his life, to destroy that which has destroyed him, so he desperately holds on, waiting for the right time to deliver his message and have his revenge. This thought brings him peace and as the song draws to a close the music explodes into a soaring chorus of guitars with wild rhythms and thick harmonies merged together with pounding bass and drums. Does he hold on and have his revenge? We find out in later tracks.

I really like "I Used to be Young" as an opening track. It does a great job of setting the table, both thematically and musically, for the rest of the CD, leaving no doubt that this will be another epic Fireaxe production. From quiet vocal and keyboard passages to thunderous guitars and drums to scintillating harmonic solos the track seems to have it all, well, save for a part with a fast, driving rhythm. But you don't have to wait long to get that as that is what the second track is all about.

Thematically, the track sets the stage for what will be a blistering attack on some of the more pervasive ideologies of our modern world. The first one to come under fire is the one commonly known as "The American Dream", which has helped to spread capitalism across the globe, where through hard work and perseverance one will achieve greatness, find love, and live the good life. Those are the naïve hopes and dreams of the protagonist whose destruction he bemoans in the opening verses. In the following tracks I show how ideological corruption has destroyed the American Dream and how it will destroy the protagonist as well, leaving him nothing more than the sum total of his hatred and desire for revenge. No, the protagonist is not a hero, nor is he ever intended to be. He is the product of warring ideologies, driven by fantastic promises and great dreams, cut, disfigured, and twisted by corruption and lies, and transformed into a weapon by a desire to destroy those ideologies, which, oddly enough, stems from a sense of justice found in almost all ideologies. The ugliness of the protagonist is merely a reflection of that which made him, the ideologies of the modern world. Look upon him, if you dare. You might not like what you see. In fact, you might see parts of yourself reflected in his angry stare.