The Dungeon Era

(Instrumental)

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Liner Notes: LT: “The idea behind this is it’s someone flipping between radio stations and getting nothing but rubbish 90s mainstream or grunge music, and it getting nuked from orbit, and then metal is resurrected. Yes, yes — I’m well aware of the cliché and I think we were even back on the original 1999 Dungeon recording, but it was a slightly tongue-in-cheek way to give the middle finger to what we felt was the popularity of terrible music that had driven our scene underground.”

Words: n/a Music/Concept: T. Grose

A memory of a time
When we were proud to live our dreams
There’ll be no compromise
Standing tall, we will be supreme

No-one could crush our will to be
This time we’re gonna make them see

The resurrection time is now
Forever we survive
Back from the grave to take control
Forever
The resurrection time is now
Returning from the fire
We have the strength, we have the power
Forever we survive

They tried to tear us down
Rape our hearts and steal our dreams
This time we won’t hold back
Glory bound, we claim our victory

Standing tall and standing proud
The beast inside is breaking out

SOLO: LT / MARK

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Liner Notes: LT: “Funnily enough, this was the last song written for the album, and it was written after the title had been chosen — something we’d repeat on the next three Dungeon albums and many of the LORD albums that followed, not by design at all; it was just one of those things that kept happening. Originally the demo of this song just started with the main riff and the fast drums, but it always felt like it needed some cool into, or a drum fill or something like that. To get our drummer at the time, Stevo, more invested in the band, I suggested to him to write an intro drum roll and we’d naturally started to play around with the song a bit, reversing the beat in some sections to break up the relentless 2/4 kind of feel the song had all the way through.”

Words: T. Grose Music: T. Grose / S. Moore

I felt so weak, all hope was gone
My skin blistered slowly away
Gangrene and Smallpox – no life left inside of me
The pain that I felt was unreal

I make my last stand as success comes my way
My bones gain their strength, nothing stands in my way
The final encounter decides who will win
Desire to live will survive

Running away to paradise – victory in my sights
Running away to paradise – the gods are on my side

My body aching – scarred, torn and wretched
Forced to go on through the pain
Was it will that revived me, brought life back inside of me
With blood flowing fast though my veins

SOLO: LT / LT

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Liner Notes: LT: “This song remains the most recorded song in the band’s history, bar none. Dale (Dungeon guitarist) wrote the original version of this in early 1993, which he recorded on his portastudio, then I rearranged the harmony section in the middle, reprogrammed the drums and re-recorded it on my gear, then we did the first proper demo of it at NuTown Studio later in the year. It was re-recorded again with real drums for the ‘Changing Moods’ EP in 1994, and had the bass redone by Juz and then featured on the ‘Demolition’ album. We re-recorded it again for the ‘Resurrection’ demo tape, then an unreleased demo at Festival Studios, then the original ‘Resurrection’ album in 1999. It was recorded once again for the limited edition Japanese tour album ‘Rising Power’ in 2003, then a live version was on the ‘Under the Rising Sun’ album and DVD. In 2005 it was recorded yet again for the ‘Resurrection’ re-recording. Dungeon changed over to LORD in late 2005 and in 2006 it appeared on the ‘Live at The Metro’ album. An unplugged version appeared on the ‘Return of the Tyrant’ EP and now finally, here it is on ‘The Dungeon Era.’ So adding that all up, that’s more than a dozen times we’ve recorded this damn song! It’s a great song and it’s longevity really comes down to some killer writing by Dale, but hopefully you’re a bit less sick of it than we are!”

Words: D. Corney Music: D. Corney / T. Grose

Take a look at yourself
What you see isn’t real
It’s just a part of your imagination

I see you standing here in front of me, yeah
I hear you talking yet you should not be there

Just an image from my mind
A dark memory
Stalking close and never letting me be
I push you back, close the blind, lock you away
Drive out the pain and all the misery…

No way out – trapped in your world of make-believe
Lost in the dark, can’t find my way
Your grip is tightening on me

No point in fighting you now
You keep on breaking the rules
I make the play but you just turn it upside down

These games you play, you know they’re killing me
Haunting my dreams and never letting me sleep

SOLO: LT

What keeps you safe in your home
Your locked and bolted door
Who knows your dark fear of night
Your TV screen can’t keep you warm

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Liner Notes: LT: “I remember Dale showing me his quick demo of this and being half blown away by how technical yet catchy it was, and half not understanding most of what he was doing in it. Dale is one of those writers where he doesn’t have a massive grasp of theory or traditional ways of doing things; he just likes to record, listen back, refine, record again and repeat until he comes close to what he hears in his head. It can take quite a long time before he finishes a song but you’re almost guaranteed to have some idea that is just completely off the wall that came about from hours of trying out different ideas and seeing what works best. Those kind of ideas make perfect sense to the writer that has heard them evolve over time but to the poor idiot (ie: me) who needed to demo up the proper drum parts to show to our drummer, counting stuff out and understanding how the riffs fit together was a nightmare. This was a staple of our live set for years and is still a great fun song to play now. To this day, no one — including Dale — has any idea what the lyrics are about!”

Words / Music: D. Corney

On every corner there’s a preacher
In every city there’s a prayer
And as they crucify each other
I contemplate the open air… yeah…

Wake up

And every man becomes a saviour
So in the name peace condemn
It’s funny how the big solution
Just brings the greatest sinners in… yeah…

Righteous to the end
As they rape your children
And like children we obey

SOLO: LT

A holy war on the horizon
Same old excuses still at hand
They say he made us in his likeness
I say we shaped him like a man

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Liner Notes: LT: “I used to badger Juz (Dungeon bassist) to play some of his old band’s songs in Dungeon, or at least contribute some left over ideas that would work well in our style. He responded with ‘Wake Up,’ which was this amazing galloping Iron Maiden-esque track with clever lyrics that cast a cynical eye on organised religion. His demo was so good I insisted he sing it, which also gave me a much needed vocal break when we introduced it into our live set. In the 2005 re-recording and on this LORD version, I handled the lead vocals but I definitely still have a soft-spot for Juz’s original vocals.”

Words / Music: J. Sayers

You – you promised us hope
You gave us a dream
You promised us lies

Now you – you’ve taken it all
You’ve taken our lives
And thrown them away

Fight – fight for your lives
Fight – fight to be free, yeah
Death to them all, the liars and cheats
Fight – to kill them all

They – they think that they’re right
They think they’re supreme
They’re too blind to see

Now we – we rise to the call
Stand ’til we fall
Broken and weak

SOLO: LT

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Liner Notes: LT: “This was another one of Dale’s that I added a few things too, and Juz changed one chord in the intro, which has probably earned him an extra $3.75 royalties over the last twenty years. This was always a great live song to do, and the ‘fight, fight, fight’ chant in the middle was always great to do.”

Words: D. Corney / Music: D. Corney / T. Grose / J. Sayers

Suffer my child, bleed for me now
Cleanse your soul, set your spirit free
Fly for me or the devil take your soul
Burn for me, you will believe

Rituals turning in my head
My senses dulled, I’m burning

I see my life before my eyes
There’s nothing there I can deny
What have I done in my time
Screaming out before I die

Rescue me – somebody save me
Demons in my mind driving me insane
Darkness all around taking blood from me
Searing heat burning, peeling my skin

SOLO: LT

One more chance, one more life
There’s still time to see the light

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Liner Notes: LT: “Another one of Dale’s and it’s just… relentless. Nothing but fast double kicks, high vocals and harmony guitars for the entire duration of the song. Oddly enough, this song is one that gets requested that we reintroduce it into our live set all of the time, only to find that whenever we do, we can see the crowd fall into a lull for the entire time we’re playing it. Weird! This was one song where the drums especially evolved over time from the original drum machine version, to Stevo’s interpretation of them on the original ‘Resurrection’ album, to how it changed by the time we did the 2005 re-recording, and then T.Y.’s own changes over the years to how it ended up on this current re-recording.”

Words / Music: D. Corney

So here we’re stading now
So many years passed
Old words just like the stars
So much still left unsaid
Yet we know there’s nothing more to say

The chapter is closing now
Stand at the crossroads
It’s time to find a way
And as the sun goes down
We’re walking away

Severing ties, severing ties
It’s come to the time to say goodbye
When it’s time to leave, it’s time to go
When it’s time you’ll know
It’s time to say your last goodbyes

So thanks for the memories
Locked up tight
And carried deep within
And maybe cross paths one day
And new ties begin

SOLO: LT

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Liner Notes: LT: “When we went in to record Dungeon’s ‘One Step Beyond’ album in 2004, the plan was to re-record the ‘Resurrection’ album at the same time since we were so unhappy with how the original 1999 version turned out. ‘Severed Ties’ was originally planned to be on ‘One Step Beyond’ but after listening to everything all together, we decided to shift that to ‘Resurrection’ since it was lacking a slow song and we were down a song by way of dropping ‘Let It Go’ which appeared on the 1999 version. The song was built from the original bass groove with the tapped harmonics and actually features a real string section.”

Words / Music: T. Grose

Death – the anti-hero, champion of the doomed
I’ll be there to end your life, to take you to your tomb
I will seal your fate, before me you’ll decay
There’s no escape, your soul is gone – I’ll steal your life away

I’ll end your suffering, I’ll end your pain
When you take your final breath – then you’ll know my name

I am death (death – death – death)

I live within the hungry children on the streets
I’m the disease that kills you while you sleep
I am the needle that’s in the junkie’s arm
I am the tormentor – the storm before the calm

SOLO: LT / MARK

They call me the reaper – I am the man in black
When you give your life to me, there is no turning back
You will know the end is near – you’ll see my toothy grin
Now you leave this life of hell, but another one begins

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Liner Notes: LT: “If you’ve ever been to a Dungeon or LORD show over the last twenty years, chances are you’ve heard this song. Quite honestly, I’m sick to death of it, but it always goes over great live, which is why we kept it in the set for so long. This is a fun song in that we tend to put short parts of cover songs just after the solo section. Some of the popular ones have been Slayer’s ‘Raining Blood,’ Megadeth’s ‘Holy Wars,’ and Kylie Minogue’s ‘On a Night like This’ (which we eventually played in full) but there’s been everything from Bon Jovi, to Europe and a particularly flat-falling joke of us putting in Rick Astley’s ‘Never Gonna Give You Up’ in there to Rick-Roll the crowd only to be met with blank stares from nearly everyone in the room… except for one guy at the back who thought it was the funniest thing he’d ever seen. Thanks, guy at the back of the room — glad we made your day! I actually wrote the bulk of the song while I was in the shower, thinking of some way we could get the crowd to chant along with us, and the middle groove section was actually a picking exercise for a guitar student of mine at the time. There you go, all of the magic is ruined forever. You’re welcome!”

Words / Music: T. Grose

These games that you’re playing have gone on for far too long
Ulterior motives and hidden agendas and lies
Transparent like glass, I saw through you right from the start
It’s the end of the line, now it’s time – judgement day

You can’t run or hide – you know that I’ll find you
Oh, it’s now your time – you’ve reached your judgement day

So blatantly clear, are you stupid or are you insane?
A blind man could see your deceit, but still you try – why?
Feeding your ego – I tell you that you’re not that good
Pull in your head now, my friend, or I’ll take you down

SOLO: LT / MARK

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Liner Notes: LT: “On the Dungeon album ‘Demolition’ there was a song I’d written called ‘Lies’ which was a speedy power metal song with a cool harmony section in the middle. We jammed on it a few times in the rehearsal room and it just felt really awkward, and I wasn’t particularly sold on the lyrics or where the vocals were sitting. When I started writing what was to be ‘Judgment Day’ I ended up cannibalising parts of ‘Lies’ to finish the song. I think we ended up with a superior track from doing that and it was always a great aggressive song to put into the end of a live set to keep the energy level up. When we did the first demo of this song in 1997 and we were auditioning bell samples for the intro, we’d gone through the usual church bells, tubular bells, etc. as we scrolled through the bell patches in the sampler and we landed on the sound of a bicycle bell ringing, which we dropped into the mix as a gag and then spent the next two hours on the floor laughing at how ridiculous it sounded (clearly it was a very long day in the studio that day). For quite a while after that, Juz and I called the song ‘Judgment Bicycle.’ We are obviously both still five years old.”

Words / Music: T. Grose

Oh – the armies of darkness are coming to poison the lands
Takhisis, the queen of the night has risen again
Five-headed dragon returned from the land of the dead
To enslave us all

Oh – may Paladine smile upon us as we go to war
Like ancient Solamnic Knights have battled before
Defenders of light, sworn to fight for us all
To save the world

Silver and gold – the dragons of light
Pushing the darkness aside
The Measure and Code – the law of the knights
Echoing in my mind

My honour – is my life
My honour – will survive

Oh – as I look deep into the elf-maiden’s eyes
Gwyneth, my love, don’t you mourn for me if I die
Your memory will pass with me into the next life
You’ll always be part of me

Now – as I ride through the sky, a dragon of silver below
The dragon is one with Gwyneth, but how could I’ve known?
I focus my mind, remember the Solamnic Oath
As we reach the queen

SOLO: LT

Flames were all around, they heard the victory cry
Ansalon was spared, but they knew they’d reached their time
With their final breath, her secret was set free
‘Huma, I’m one with you – you’re one with me…’

Now as you look into the sky, there’s two new shining stars
The legend handed down from son to son, sung by bards
The dragon and the ancient knight did defeat the evil queen
They went to their deaths together with a love that could never be

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Liner Notes: LT: “I was a big Dungeons and Dragons enthusiast when I was growing up and that naturally led to me discovering a lot of fantasy novels, particularly the Dragonlance Chronicles. One of the legendary characters in there was an ancient Solamnic Knight called Huma, and I was overjoyed when I discovered a spin-off novel by Richard A. Knaak called ‘The Legend of Huma’ that went into detail about his epic adventures and how his story crucially affected what happened in the original chronicles. I was noodling around with some very primitive keyboard gear sometime around 1994 and came up with the intro to what would become our song, ‘The Legend of Huma’ and it sounded so epic to me (despite the sounds not being overly great) that it inspired me to continue writing for the song, and developing two distinct parts that really helped tell the story. We’ve never been a band that’s written fantasy songs — in fact, aside from this one and vague references in ‘Netherlife’ from the ‘A Rise to Power’ album, that’s pretty much it — but what I’d come up with was just crying out for a very fantasy inspired lyric, and was a great excuse for me to write about Huma.“

Words / Music: T. Grose

Waiting gets you nowhere
You won’t become what you want to be
Nothing is gonna stop me
I’m gonna break down the walls
To set me free

No one will ever hold me back
Like they did before
Ain’t gonna take it anymore

Don’t look back, don’t turn ’round
Gotta move on to break new ground
See the sights and hear the sounds
Don’t stop now

I’ve been knocked down
And walked all over
I’ve been kicked in the teeth
Time after time
No more will I take it
This time I’m not going down
Without a fight

SOLO: LT / LT

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Liner Notes: LT: “If you looked up the definition of ‘cheesy’ I’m sure you’d find an audio sample of this song! This was written in early 1991 and was the leading track on Dungeon’s first four-song demo tape we sent out to the press in 1992, which got some great reviews and prompted us to relocate to Sydney. By the time we started getting a band together in Sydney I was already a little unsure of this one — I’d felt we’d outgrown it by this point, but Dale (guitars) would always bring up the good point that it was fun to play and we always played it well. It was finally retired once Stevo (drums) and Juz (bass) solidified the lineup in 1997 and has never been recorded or played live since… until now.“

Words / Music: T. Grose

Life’s hard – no joke! Like a chain around your throat
Slave to the life out on the streets
You’re down, but not out – you’re tryin’ to break out from here
But it calls you back again

You say, ‘Leave me be, I just need a little time.’
Yeah – time to die in a concrete grave!
You can say ‘Just let me live my life.’
This is it – it’s all you get
You only get…

One shot, one shot at life – don’t let it pass you by
One shot, one shot at life – you only get one shot at life

No light with the dawn
No future, can go on – all lies! Your life is in you hands
You want to die, you want to quit
Wake up – that’s just a pile of shit
If you want to break free, you’ve got to try

One shot, one shot at life – don’t let it pass you by
One shot, one shot at life – it’s gone if you don’t try
One shot, one shot at life – make a stand and reach for the sky
One shot, one shot at life – you only get one shot at life

SOLO: LT

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Liner Notes: LT: “This was one of the first of the more gritty songs that was written and was, in fact, the first to have a naughty swear word in it (ooooh!). This ended up becoming the opening track on Dungeon’s ‘Changing Moods’ EP and, like many of the other melodic rock songs from our early years, was retired when we’d focused the sound onto more power/thrash in 1997.“

Words / Music: T. Grose

“One day the saviour will come, and my people will be free…”

(Instrumental)

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Liner Notes: LT: “I wanted to start the album off with a short piece to set the tone of the title track. The title track was all about starting with the purest of intentions and it all spiralling downwards from there, and the child’s voice really embodied that innocence. That’s a real flute playing the melody line, and it was just by chance that we met the flute player in a cover band duo the night before Stu’s first show at Metal for the Brain 2001. Aside from the real flute, everything else was synths and samples, and unfortunately on the original version, you can really tell, and this was all entirely redone properly for The Dungeon Era version.”

Words: n/a Music/Concept: T. Grose

I’ve walked through the lonely places
I’ve seen years of hurt in their eyes
And passing the empty faces
The story told so many times

Now it’s time to fight
Together we unite – Tonight, we shall arise!

Their spirit lay crushed before them
All hope gone before it began
A new cause, behold the savior
The chosen, a leader of men

Now it’s time to fight
Together we unite
From out of the darkness and leading us on in…

A rise to power, the world is in our hands
Marching on, we fight as one
A rise to power, we spread throughout the lands
Cast aside the fallen ones
The armies of the light, we shall arise!

SOLO: LT

I am the chosen one
The hand of God upon the world
Oppose my word and you’ll all be destroyed

As time marches on eternal
Growing in strength, my word is feared
Don’t pray to your gods – you now pray to me!
Heed my words and save your soul

SOLO: LT

A rise to power, the world is in my hands
A sign from God, I’m the the chosen one
A rise to power, we spread throughout the lands
Cast aside the fallen ones
The armies show my might, we shall arise!

Marching on and on, to my eyes I do no wrong
Blinded to the truth – I’m just a man
Believing my own words, distort the world with lies
Into madness I descend – forevermore…

SOLO: LT

A rise to power, the world was in my hands
Cast aside – the fallen one
The final hour – into madness I descend
A final curse, though tonight I burn
My spirit will survive, I shall arise!

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Liner Notes: LT: “This song is very loosely based on the story of Joan of Arc, where an ordinary person believes they’re following the word of their god and doing what’s right for their people. And for a time, it looks like it’s all going exactly as planned. More followers join the pack, more power and trust is given to their new leader and then it starts to become more about being a figurehead than doing the right thing. It’s no longer ‘god’s word,’ it’s now ‘god’s word through me’ which eventually becomes ‘my word.’ As the saying goes, absolute power corrupts absolutely, and when the inevitable happens and the truth is revealed that everyone was just following a megalomaniac with an agenda, not from the gods at all but from a twisted mind, the ultimate fate of the heretic was to be burned at the stake. This was one of the more involved songs on the “A Rise to Power” album, with heavily harmonised and orchestrated guitar lines. I’d always regretted that it wasn’t more cinematic since it was such a big canvas to work with, although there were some nice angelic choir pads in the “I am the chosen one” verse (albeit with fairly dated sounds by today’s standards). On the re-recording, we added in dozens of extra vocal tracks into the choruses, the choir sounds were updated and I’d finally added in the film score-esque orchestration into key parts of the song, to really bring home the epic scope of the theme.”

Words: T. Grose Music: T. Grose / S. Moore

SOLO: LT

A shadow falls upon the night
A freezing cold and fear – my herald call
A noble man once long ago
Now evil burns within my soul
The power is mine, no one I fear
When life or death is my command
I’d trade it all to turn back time

I was once a mortal man
Saw jealousy arise – my pride and fall
I do not live, I cannot die
I’m cursed to walk these streets alone
Eternal life but not alive
The Banshees cry my tragic tale
Every morning with the dawn

Blackened heart, blackened soul, netherlife
All I am, all I feel, all I see
Black roses die

SOLO: LT

From the night I betrayed my world
And myself
I still feel the flames
Burned – scarred
What is left of me? What remains?

Cursed – scorned
My foolish pride!
Eternal life, eternal death – I paid the price…

SOLO: LT / LT

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Liner Notes: LT: “On the ‘Resurrection’ album we had a song called ‘The Legend of Huma’ which was based on a character from one of the Dragonlance series of novels. I still found quite a lot of inspiration from the stories in those books, and one interesting character in particular was the Death Knight, Lord Soth. He had a tragic tale of being a noble Solamnic Knight (like Huma) that was overcome with jealousy and rage. Instead of following the will of the gods that would have prevented a massive catastrophe, he returned to his castle to murder his wife that he suspected of infidelity. The gods, in their anger, hurled a fiery mountain at the world. Soth was consumed in flames but instead of dying, he was cursed to roam forever, undead, listening to the banshees wail the song of his downfall every morning. Unlike on ‘The Legend of Huma’ where the lyrics were really overt and obvious as to what it was about, I wanted ‘Netherlife’ to specifically avoid any direct references to the novels, and it would be more up to the listener to get their own meaning from the lyrics. This was probably the closest thing to a fantasy metal song on the entire album, so it was pretty funny hearing some lazy reviewers calling the album ‘full of songs about elves and mighty swords’ after only seeing the name of the band and the European label it was released on.”

Words: T. Grose Music: T. Grose / S. Moore

United we stand
All intention is clear
Enraged by injustice
No longer blinded by fear

Young blood within us
Tired of wasting time
We will crush you – all! (DIE!)

Never doubting
Always in control
Believing in something
We’ve never known at all

Young blood within us
Strength born of fire
We will rise up – high!

Insanity’s fall – divided and torn
In glory or death we will rise
Fire in our eyes, in cold frost of night
Our guide into darkness will die

Hardened by anger
Our salvation draws near
My heart, my soul
My life – my own

Too late – I know
I see the forces rising
Before the lines I pray
The future will be

SOLO: LT

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Liner Notes: LT: “This was a bit of an odd song in that it was pieced together from a core idea of Dale’s with other ideas that we’d written at his house in one of our short-lived forced writing sessions. After it was recorded and arranged, Stu had the idea of having the song start with a vocal rather than the original accented build up, so when it came time to edit the length of the song down for the video we shot for it, we opted to go with that idea, as well as replacing Dale’s album solo with one by Stu. On ‘The Dungeon Era’ re-recording, we decided to go with the video version rather than recreating the album version, simply because it was a different take on the song to the original. I actually do prefer the album version with the longer build up if I had to choose, but I do like that the video version with the vocal intro was different to anything else on the album. Some of the synths and choirs were replaced, but I ended up keeping some of the original string samples. They sound nothing like real strings at all, but there’s a real charm to the sound that was just too good to update.”

Words: D. Corney Music: D. Corney / T. Grose / S. Moore

Making the play, the future is mine
Seizing the day, walking the line
Here I stand, just a man with his life in his hands
With tooth and nail and hand over fist I climb on and on

A dream of a life far from here
I know one day I’ll find

A better way
A brighter day
The perfect life
Is on the other side
A chance for me
To live the dream
The grass is green
On the other side

Reaching the top and I wonder, is this all there is?
All those years that I walked the line
Played the role, took it’s toll on this goldfish bowl I call life
From every direction a voice – don’t know which way to turn

I search for a life far from here
The one I left behind

SOLOs: LT

Another headline, another fallen star
Are we better off where we are?

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Liner Notes: LT: “Lyrically this came about after watching a documentary on TV about deceased INXS singer Michael Hutchence. It’s not actually about him at all or based on any person in particular, but that was enough to get me thinking about celebrity and how sometimes the end result of all of the struggle and sacrifice isn’t what you might expect. The original idea for the song came from a bassline of Dakk’s. He had a handful of really cool bass things he’d been noodling with that I got him to record at my studio when he came over one day. This triplet thing really caught my ear, and to me it had a real Queensrÿche kind of vibe to it all. The more I played around with it, the more it felt like the chorus of the song should be transposed up a tone and then cut up to make more quirky, which led to the chorus being mostly in 7/4 triplets. Dakk quickly took the new changes on board and turned his original simple idea into something magical. The rest of the song just seemed to fall into place around this bassline and became a really interesting and moody progressive metal song.”

Words: T. Grose Music: B. McDonald / T. Grose / S. Moore

Oh – Thunder roars, the sky above is black
Lightning cracks the sky
Oh – Horizontal rain that drives us back
But still we’ve got to try

Stormchaser

Oh – Electronic sensors watch the sky
Chaos all around
Oh – Fujita scale left somewhere far behind
We face a monster on the ground

SOLO: LT

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Liner Notes: LT: “This song was the result of watching far too many ‘when mother nature turns nasty’ shows on TV. For a while there it seemed like our free-to-air channels would have a different one of these shows on every night, and it was topped off by yet another re-run of the movie ‘Twister,’ and somehow the genesis of this song formed in my mind. ‘Stormchaser’ was one of the more riff based songs, with a finger-twisting main hook and a big singalong chorus. I don’t think it was one of the more interesting things on the album, honestly, but it was immediate and fun and a real crowd pleaser whenever we included it into the live set.'”

Words: T. Grose Music: T. Grose / S. Moore

I’ve heard about the secret voices
Claiming to be heard
Their souls were lost in madness
Never to return

Reaching out from within the circle
Dictating all our lives
No feelings felt, all questions answered
Too easy we deny

Can’t leave this realm behind
Or all I am inside me dies
Defending the innocents’ every life

Lost – in this nightmare, a world full of fear
Where madness hides
Lost – in the shadows when darkness falls
I’m lost inside my mind

Sunrise holds no guarantees
Foreclosure or relief
The system failed, the silence broken
Crushed beyond belief

Lost – in this nightmare, a world full of fear
Where madness hides
Lost – in the shadows when darkness falls
Inside my mind
Blind – in the twilight that comes for us all
In the dead of night
Lost – when there’s nowhere left to run
I’m lost inside my mind

SOLO: LT / LT

Is this real or is this a dream?
Can’t leave this world behind

---

Liner Notes: LT: “This was originally one of my ideas that was written not long after we’d finished the 1999 Dungeon ‘Resurrection’ album. I had pretty much all of the song in place musically, including a cool oriental sounding breakdown section in the middle. It was really power metal sounding in its original form, which was then handed over to Dale to come up with a vocal melody and lyrics, which he did for everything except for the chorus, which I ended up writing. After we presented the demo to the band, Stevo took this song and ran with it, creating a much more thrashy vibe overall and really kicking the energy up in the chorus especially with constantly switching around accents. I’d written my lyric parts about schizophrenia based on what I thought Dale’s lyrics were about, only to later find out he’d written it about a werewolf. Huh. Go figure! I guess, if you think about it, the life of a werewolf is pretty schizophrenic!”

Words: T. Grose / D. Corney Music: T. Grose / D. Corney / S. Moore

A plastic life inside a plastic world
No longer feel the fire
So sanitised, integrity’s demise
It’s evil in disguise

We blindly trust our guiding light
Following misguided dreams
What have we done? We’ve gone too far

Unwise to the world, we’re told what to see
Force-fed a life so sugary sweet
Never questioning the world around us
Never dared to look inside

We are lost in the light
Inner darkness that betrays the night
Is this the world we wanted?
Somehow we’ve lost our way
We’ve lost our way…

SOLOs: LT

Censored thoughts, so far removed from life
Everything we see on TV, the music we hear, the games we play
Twisted and diluted to “protect us”
Is it any wonder our children are looking elsewhere for the truth?
Feeling the anger rise when they learn it’s all been lies

BASS SOLO: Dakk

SOLOs: LT

Deprived of the truth, we’re told what to feel
Accepting their words, a world beyond real
What once began with the best intentions
Somehow ended up as lies

SOLO: LT

---

Liner Notes: LT: “This was one of my songs that had some massive gaps in between the sections, that I had no idea what I could fill them with. Each part I’d written was quite strong but it all seemed like independent songs rather than all the same thing, which I was regretting because I really wanted to combine everything into an epic somehow. Enter Dakk and his bass ideas that we’d recorded. In amongst all of those was a really crunchy open string based thing, a speedy pivoting riff and a slow moody chord based thing — all being exactly the missing pieces the song needed. I based my rhythm parts in those sections on his basslines and the song came alive. This remains one of the more complex songs in the entire Dungeon Era catalogue.”

Words: T. Grose Music: T. Grose / B. McDonald / S. Moore

(Instrumental)

SOLOs: LT

---

Liner Notes: LT: “Stevo came to me with an idea for a dark instrumental ballad. The only problem was that Stevo was a drummer only, and short of fretting single notes at a time on a guitar, he couldn’t play any melodic instruments. Of course, when you’re determined to get an idea out, a small detail like this won’t get in the way! He went through the sound of groups of chords and mapped them out, and even whistled the idea for some of the orchestration, naturally also writing the drum parts, and gave the overall direction of the feel of the guitar parts. This was all easily clear enough to give me something to work with. I added different chord voicings to make the acoustic guitar a little more complex, while still staying true to Stevo’s chords, and did a little extra orchestration work than what we’d originally discussed. I think even he was surprised when he heard the solo I came up with. This was something I worked really hard at squeezing every last bit of emotion out of, and it was at the end of a long day after a big binge of listening to Gary Moore. I was really proud how this all turned out. It was a real challenge when it came time to re-record the solos for ‘The Dungeon Era’ because they had to have the same magic as the original, which was no easy task!”

Words: n/a Music: S. Moore / T. Grose

(Instrumental)

---

Liner Notes: LT: “We wanted to set the scene for the last ‘proper’ song on the album, ‘Traumatised,’ by having a short concept piece, similar to pre-titles sequence on a movie or TV show. Stevo came up with the concept and wrote the script and then we looked at each other and went ‘… oh shit. Who are we going to get to act in this?’ Apart from the girl who played the unfortunate host to the alien hybrid, who was actually pretty great, it came down to us four fools to do the acting… and as we discovered, we were pretty crap. The original concept started with a guy coming home and finding his pregnant partner on the floor, bleeding and very much in distress, so he calls her an ambulance. We did that scene but ended up cutting the ambulance ride to the hospital scene because we just couldn’t work out a convincing way to do it. Eventually in the hospital, the girl starts convulsing as one of the medical staff sees something moving around under the skin of her chest, when suddenly with an horrific scream, something bursts out of her and she dies. The theatre falls silent as this… thing begins to cry like a baby but then turns into some terrifying otherworldly screech. Sounds exciting, right? Oh man… we sucked. The dialogue itself was honestly a bit crap to begin with (sorry, Stevo!) but what we did with it was just hilariously bad. It could have been Shakespeare and it would have still sounded just as stupid with us clowns doing it! I listened back to the finished edit and facepalmed. Oh dear. There was no way we could use this! So out came the virtual scissors to edit it down. We lost the first scene entirely, and we’d already trashed the ambulance scene, and I think I cut more than half of the running time off of the hospital scene once it was all said and done. It was still pretty terrible but at least it was short! There’s a certain dorky charm to it which I’m sure a lot of people would enjoy, and the idea itself was fantastic, but I think I speak for all of us when I say that this wasn’t exactly the cinematic masterpiece we’d hoped for! Fast forward to 2014 and ‘The Dungeon Era’ re-recording finally addresses all of the shortcomings of the originals. I made the wise choice and actually got proper actors in for most of the parts (minor parts that could be played by any idiot were done by Andy and me), and now that I had both the technology and sample libraries available to do this convincingly, all of the original scenes could finally be put back in, including the ill-fated ambulance scene. I actually did some research this time about what kind of procedures and drug dosages you might see in a case like this so it sounded a little more authentic, and finally I wrote a score that could be straight out of the popular old medical drama All Saints, really selling the vibe. It’s still kind of goofy and a bit cheesy (in fact, there’s a tongue-in-cheek reference in the script that mentions ‘double cheese’ that was put in as a ‘breaking the fourth wall’ nod and wink) but I kind of like that — it’s still a lot of fun.”

Script: T. Grose Music: T. Grose Concept: S. Moore / T. Grose

I can’t believe what I can see
A human? An alien? Something in between?
Strapped down screams, a white room red
Ripping flesh, her final breath

Chaos, fear, transfixed in place
Emerging form now taking shape
Trapped inside this deadly space
Death is here

Is this a force of nature?
Can I relate to it for…

I need your mind to guide me
I need your strength inside me
How could I be so blind?

Fear is sending me blind
I can’t breathe inside
An infant’s mind but so much more
Is reaching out to all

Horror, hatred, deep in shock
All thoughts are known to me
Can’t comprehend what I’ve done wrong
Death I fear

This is no force of nature
I can relate to it for…

I want your mind to guide me
I want your strength inside me
How can fear be kind?

SOLOs: LT

Join with me and you will see the key to human destiny
Release the pain and suffering, transforming bland society
Evolving form, evolving mind, I’ll show you what you’re meant to be
Beyond the realm of stagnant life, I offer you infinity!

Dripping blood the only sound
Silent stares from all around
Rising up the creature smiles
Its purpose realised

Reach within unknowing minds
Steal knowledge, strength, all life it finds
The final human chapter told
Now death is here!

There is contempt of nature
There’s no relation here, ‘cos…

I have your mind to guide me
And I have your strength inside me
Traumatised
I have your minds inside me
Leaving human life behind me
You’re traumatised

---

Liner Notes: LT: “At the time, this song was the most controversial song we’d done to date. Stevo had come up with an idea that he’d worked out using a single string on a guitar, but like ‘Life is Black’ he described it well enough for me to translate his ideas into the song he was hearing in his head. Vocally this was a radical departure from anything we’d ever done before as I used a vocal style very similar to 80s thrash bands like Kreator for the first time. A true classic thrash monster with touches of melodic metal that tied it back into our core style. The song itself was a sci-fi / horror story about an alien-human hybrid that had freshly burst out of its host and was discovering the world for the first time. The first verse was from the perspective of the hospital staff who couldn’t believe their eyes and had no idea what had ripped open their emergency room patient. The second verse was from the perspective of the newborn creature, being afraid and not really understanding what was going on, but using telepathy it could read the horrified thoughts of the onlookers. By the time we get to the last verse, the creature had absorbed enough information from the thoughts of the onlookers and realised what it was, and the power it held. In its mind it was the next stage in human evolution and saw a day when mankind would be facing its final curtain.”

Words / Music: T. Grose / S. Moore

(Instrumental)

ALL GUITARS: LT

---

Liner Notes: LT: “It felt really weird ending the album with ‘Traumatised’ since this song was such a different vibe to everything else on the album. It’s as if you’d eaten a meal and then gotten a strange, unexpected after-taste when you were done. Since we already had an intro to the album, it made sense to revisit some of the ideas from the title track and really bring the album full circle. In actual fact, aside from the main gist of the piece being based on the chorus of ‘A Rise to Power,’ there were also a lot of elements from the chorus of ‘Netherlife’ and both the intro and melody before the sing-along part of ‘Insanity’s Fall’ in there as well, really adding a lot of interesting counterpoint ideas to the familiar main melody.”

Words: n/a Music: T. Grose

I catch your eye in the fading light
Can you see me sweatin’, baby, I’m so hot tonight

I’ll do what you want me to do, I’ll do what you like
I’ve got to get close to you, to be with you tonight
I’ll be your slave of love

Slave of love – I’ll be your slave of love
Slave of love – oh, baby please
Slave of love – I’ll be your slave of love
Slave of love – I’m beggin’ down on my knees
I’ll be your slave of love…

Satin sheets – I feel so hot
Holdin’ you tightly, baby – give you all that I’ve got

I’ll be what you want me to be, I’ll be what you like
Your every fantasy, to be with you tonight
I’ll be your slave of love

SOLO: LT

---

Liner Notes: LT: “In the early 90s, one of the original guitarists from the first pop band I was putting together came to visit. He’d moved away to country Victoria and had formed a female fronted hard rock band called Stilletto. He asked me to write them an original song and I came up with ‘Slave of Love.’ I don’t think they ever got around to using it before the band broke up, but already I’d started jamming on it with Dale, and we decided to record it ourselves to see how it would turn out. It eventually made its way onto the ‘Changing Moods’ and ‘Demolition’ CDs before being dropped when the band started to move in a heavier direction after Stevo joined. It was a long-running joke that this was something that we would never play — ever — so the crowd would naturally always call out for it. We finally played it live at the final Dungeon show with Juz on bass and Steve Mikulic on second guitar from the 1995 Dungeon lineup. Hilariously, Juz thought I was kidding when I asked him to get up and play it, knowing full well that this was always ‘that song we never did’ so when I introduced it, he frantically looked around to see if I was joking about playing it. I was not. Oh crap! But ever the professional, Juz stepped up and played it flawlessly. Since then, LORD has played it on a couple of occasions just for the hell of it, and finally people have either lost interest in the joke or have forgotten about this song entirely.”

Words / Music: T. Grose

Look within for a place deep inside me
Where I can believe
Seek the truth my own master, my own king
Where my spirit is free

Seeking gold and the treasure external
Fight within for the chance to grow
See the real man within, he’s eternal
Deep inside we all know

We all search for the mysteries of Eden
I now know what’s inside – there’s no turning back

Every man has a kingdom inside him
Will he ever see
What is here in the now is the reason
Find the path for his soul to be free
Deep inside is the key

Pushing on with the strength of conviction
Now within there’s a fire inside
Find the answer without contradiction
My soul free to fly

If we look to the power within us
Look inside, there is no turning back

SOLO: MARK / LT

---

Liner Notes: LT: “This song came originally from Stu who had the main riff, verse and chorus written and most of the lyrics. I’d come up with the solo section and it was… good. It was clearly a solid song but lacked that impact that we thought it should have. One night I got the idea to kick it up by fifteen beats per minute and suddenly the whole thing came to life, and we knew right then it should be the album opener.”

Words: S. Marshall Music: S. Marshall / T. Grose

A bad place, a dark space
The lines that weather my face
I stand alone before the storm
Walk with me and you’ll see
The flame that burns within me
A fire so cold to keep us so warm

You see the darkness in my eyes
The seed of life inside me dies
A search for the truth, to find a reason why
A voice cries out in pain in the night

Riding the storm wind
And facing the demons inside
A thousand sins behind my eyes
A cry from the blackness
Alone with the darkness inside
Forever will I walk against the wind

My world betrayed by treason
I stumble blind, what’s going on?

Can’t see the road that lies beyond
A need to feel where I belong
When everywhere I turn seems to guide me wrong
Running through the night for so long

SOLO: LT

---

Liner Notes: LT: “This was both the quickest song on the album to write, and yet the most difficult due to the subject matter, which I go into in depth in the huge band history that came with the box set of ‘The Dungeon Era.’ This is probably my favourite Dungeon era song, despite its dark nature.”

Words/Music: T. Grose

Young man he walks alone
The power unto his own
The ancient arts under command
Stand fast, don’t run away
What was learned is now to betray

I’ll fight you, I’ll kill you
You’ve nowhere left to run
Your life within my power
Immortal forever

The boy is now a man
His family honour now betrayed
His vengeance burning deep within
Stand fast, won’t run away
What was learned is now to betray

It was developed in the art of war
My blood and spirit made of iron fury

Through blood and battle scarred
The warrior now foretold
His spirit rises to the sky
More than a mortal man
Crush all that dare to face me

SOLO: LT

Passed on unto the son
The power of the fallen one
The ancient arts reborn forever
Stand fast, don’t run away
The art of war shall rise again

---

Liner Notes: LT: “This song of Stu’s was the first written for the ‘One Step Beyond” album and came pretty much finished from a songwriting point of view. I wrote the drum parts and came up with a few incidental harmony parts in there. We would usually open our shows with this song and when we scored the Australian tour support with Megadeth, we felt like we should have a more grandiose intro to the set, so I wrote a massive orchestrated piece based on the original song intro, and we used that in our live set up until the band changed over to LORD in late 2005.”

Words: S. Marshall Music: S. Marshall / T. Grose

Eyes of a child
Watch as the world goes by
Yet to be torn away
From innocent times

As time goes by
We’re soon taught to realise
Our dreams are but dust in the wind
And innocence dies

Over and over
We’re thrown to the ground
But over and over
We’re clawing our way back to daylight again

Remember the hunger that burns inside
Remember the fire within
Take hold of your dreams with both hands
And don’t let go again

Sand through our hands
Time seems to slip away
Harder to keep the faith
And face a new day

Over and over
We fall to our knees
But over and over
We know in our hearts that we’ll climb to our feet

Remember the hunger that burns inside [hunger burns like]
Remember the fire within [fire within]
Take hold of your dreams with both hands [hold your dreams and]
And don’t let go [don’t let go]
Search for the strength that beats in your heart [strength inside your]
And search for the hunger inside [heart and hunger]
Remember the dreams of a child [dreams within a child]
And oh, don’t let go again [don’t let go]

SOLOs: LT

Over and over
We’re thrown to the ground
But over and over
We know in our hearts that these dreams never end

---

Liner Notes: LT: “It’s amazing what a simple jam can do sometimes. One afternoon while we were warming up, both Stu and I were playing two entirely different riffs and somehow they seemed to go together. I’d remembered a melody Stu would sometimes play from a solo piece he’d recorded a few years earlier and got him to try that over the top, which also worked. This chain of ‘hey let’s try this’ turned into one of the album’s highlights for me, and a surprisingly complex and layered song after being born from such an off-the-cuff idea.”

Words: T. Grose Music: T. Grose / S. Marshall

Oh, we all live by the lie
As children we comply
Dark feelings we deny
You see it in my eyes
And feel the anger rise
From deep inside

Beneath the surface tension
The waves start to break
And face the truth that lies within
You’re screaming

Anger builds inside of me
See the world as it should be
Lived a life of agony
Breaking point, we can’t control the rage

Oh, we face another day
And try hard to restrain
The fire beneath our skin
Resign yourself to fate
Release yourself from pain
Before it’s too late

Day after day, year after year
Not a thing changes in my mundane life
Every morning I tighten the noose around my neck
And try to fit in with society
Face after face, line after line
It’s an endless stream of morons
One day I’ll make them pay
One day soon I feel I’m just about to BREAK!

SOLO: MARK / LT

---

Liner Notes: LT: “I’ve had the misfortune of working a ‘day job’ a few times in my life, often for terrible money, doing something I really didn’t enjoy. I came to the conclusion that the only person I could really work for was myself, even if the pay is terrible and ‘my boss’ is also a complete ass with all of the crazy deadlines he gives me. I tried hard to imagine what doing that kind of job would be like if you did it for twenty years and I came up with the basis for this song. ‘Surface Tension’ was always a pretty aggressive song but ‘The Dungeon Era’ re-recording with T.Y.’s live drums and the more in-your-face guitar sound, the re-recording is positively brutal!”

Words/Music: T. Grose

I, King of the sea
A galleon ship, the waves of torment and destiny
A thousand winds bear our gust, my eyes are blinded by hate
With the hammer of war and evil onboard
At the edge of hell we await

A pauper’s son, a god reborn
My name is death’s last kiss
The iron cross of Usthanates
From the secrets of the deep

There’s an evil force inside of me
Will it end, I do not know
Unholy force that lives inside my dreams
To the gates of hell we roar
Down below

Blood and battle-scarred, the sea my domain
None shall pass the Maybelle alive
Victims forty score, my sails filled from hell
Victims of the seven seas

SOLO: (sweeps) MARK / LT

---

Liner Notes: LT: “When Stu pitched the idea for this song at me, he said he imagined it as some kind of tale about the brutal, sadistic pirates rather than the ‘yarrr’ style movie pirates that people think of first. I’m not sure if we ever achieved that goal, but the awesome sea shanty riff he came up with, along with the huge sing-along chorus was enough to fuel my creativity to come up with the rest of the key melodies and make this into what is now a live favourite. To this day, neither one of us has any idea of what ‘The Iron Cross of Usthanates‘ is so if you ever find out, please let us know!”

Words: S. Marshall Music: S. Marshall / T. Grose

Walked the world today
Passed the lines of clouded eyes
Go to church and pray
Social farce, no God inside

Open your eyes
You’ll realise
In this sea of senseless lies
You live your life

Politicians say
All the ‘truths’ we need to hear
Blindly following
Is it faith or is it fear?

Open your mind
Soon you’ll find
In a world of compromise
You see the light

I’ve gone…
One step beyond the truth
One step beyond the lie
One step beyond the pain
One step beyond

I see a new day’s morning
Arise to face the dawn

One step beyond the dark
One step beyond the light
One step beyond the fear
One step beyond

I see a new day dawning
We rise to heed the warning call

SOLOs: LT

Open your eyes
You’ll realise
In this sea of senseless lies
You live your life

---

Liner Notes: LT: “Like all of the other songs that ended up as title tracks, this was written well after the album title was decided and I didn’t actually set out to write a song with the album title. It was fun to do something so fast and aggressive yet have a really melodic chorus and an interesting message behind the lyrics.”

Words/Music: T. Grose

A quest for a wealth untold
Reaping the fields of gold
A chance to live as a king for every man

Corruption within the state
Political disarray
No freedom or justice for all in the land

Oh… Our rights denied
Oh… Prepare now to fight
So, we swear allegiance, a rebellion to come
A new flag is raised toward the sun

As we stand below the Southern Cross
Brothers united as one
Stand together – a united force
We will all overcome

Renewed by the strength within
The oath sworn the wait begins
In grim resolve for what lies ahead

At dawn a surprise attack
Authorities striking back
The fields of gold now stained with seas of red

Oh… Our people may die
No… They can’t take our pride
Oh, we swore allegiance, a rebellion was won
A new flag still raised toward the sun

Though we fought with our honour and pride
We’re outnumbered a hundred to one
Defeated, but history showed
We have truly won

SOLOs: LT

WE SWEAR BY THE SOUTHERN CROSS
TO STAND TRULY BY EACH OTHER,
AND FIGHT TO DEFEND
OUR RIGHTS AND LIBERTIES.

---

Liner Notes: LT: “As the year ticked over from 2003 to 2004, Stu and I sat at his house drinking bourbon and playing guitar. At some point during the night, Stu came up with the melody that plays during the intro and I worked out the chords that work behind it. The next morning when we woke up, slightly hungover and bleary-eyed, we liked the raw idea so much that we finished the music on the spot. Around that time, Dungeon’s unofficial flag was the Southern Cross flag, which was used during the rebellion at the Eureka Stockade. I thought it would be a cool topic to write about, as it both tied into our image, and it was a great story about the birthplace of Australian democracy.”

Words: T. Grose Music: T. Grose / S. Marshall

(INSTRUMENTAL)

ALL GUITARS: LT

---

Liner Notes: LT: “People who grew up in Australia over a certain age, especially those who lived in regional areas, will remember there only being two TV channels and they would both go off the air at the end of the night for a few hours. On the ABC, they would play the national anthem and the announcer would say ‘goodnight’ so this was our take on that, ‘closing our album down after broadcast.'”

Words: n/a Music: (traditional)

Times are hard when you’re livin’ on the streets
Beggin’ and stealin’ from each other
We’re holdin’ on, tryin’ to survive
Tryin’ to keep up with the Joneses
But we’re fallin’ away
In these times when the strongest takes control

These times are the times we’ll remember
Holding us together and never apart
They will stay with us as long as we’re together
Oh – these times

On the street, in the coldness of the night
Warm in bed, they just don’t realise
We’re holdin’ on, tryin’ to survive
Tryin’ to keep up with the Jonses
And we’ll make it someday
These times are the best we ever had

SOLO: LT

These times we’ll remember
These times will remain

SOLO: LT

---

Liner Notes: LT: “When Dale first joined the band, he brought a couple of really cool song ideas with him, ‘These Times’ being one of them. It was originally more pub rock sounding and the lyrics… well, they needed a bit of work. We worked together on it to get it more metal sounding and it went through a few different revisions before it finally ended up in demo form on the ‘Demolition’ album, truthfully played pretty poorly. By the time we started working on the ‘Resurrection’ album, all of the melodic hard rock songs like this were shelved and ‘These Times’ was never recorded properly… until ‘The Dungeon Era.'”

Words/Music: D. Corney / T. Grose

Cast from the social circle
Scorned upper echelon
Cursed and betrayed, condemned to walk alone

Denied of social justice
Saw freedom was a crime
Belie respect so watch us walk away

One step beyond the mainstream
Discover who we are
And compromise their perfect world so small

Instinctive sense of freedom
Destroy their comfort zone
A victim of the times we’ll never be

If you see through our eyes
At a world full of lies
Born to be free
And forever we’ll be
Pariah

Tear down archaic values
Forge future paths of steel
Deny their mediocre way of life

False strength that’s born of numbers
No match for strength within
Integrity shall savour victory

Acceptance is unknown
Condemned to walk alone
Outcast and untouchable
Forever free to roam
Pariah

SOLOs: LT

---

 

Liner Notes: LT: “I really wanted to kick ‘The Final Chapter’ off with an aggressive, classic metal song. A high scream at the start and very Judas Priest like vocals, and lots of harmony guitar parts. T.Y. nailed the drum idea I had on this, which is surprisingly awkward to play. I remember being incredibly nervous wondering if I could pull this style of vocal off for an entire song but after all of the touring we’d done in 2005 and 2006, I was thankfully in pretty good shape.”

Words: T. Grose Music: T. Grose / T. Yatras

Deceiver – ill will you deny
Betrayer of trust you defile
False logic, the truth you defy

Of heart icy cold, turned to black
Razor-wire words of attack
With thrust of the blade to my back

And watching your fables unfold
In time truth be told

I will always be the better man
I will always be the best man that I can
So come on twist the knife, my friend
But I’ll still be here at the end
And soon you’ll see you’ve lost it all

So now, transparent – I see through your lies
Facade torn, betrayed, no surprise
Remaining respect cast aside

As plain as the day now it’s clear
Playing the game, insincere
Caught up in your own web of tears

And watch as your crocodile smile
Is betrayed by your eyes

SOLO: MAV

---

Liner Notes: LT: “The lyric inspiration on ‘Better Man’ came from dealing with people who were, shall we say, less than entirely honest with their intentions. It’s funny listening back to this song all of these years later. The lyric ‘so come on twist the knife my friend, but I’ll still be here at the end, and soon you’ll see you lost it all’ couldn’t have been more accurate. I love Mav’s solo in this song as well — really tasty blues based melodic lines.”

Words: T. Grose Music: T. Grose / T. Yatras

In the northern lands of Thebes
Under a heartless sun
Three hundred lifetimes ago

Here it lay, the Pharaoh’s kingdom
Horizon of the Aten
So lived a child who would be king

And so he lived and so he died
A tomb than no man shall defile
Forever lost are the fools who dare defy

[The curse of the Pharaohs]
Inside the Pharaohs tomb the wealth of ages
A curse befallen those who seek the king
[The curse of the Pharaohs]
The lights of Cairo died with those who gave their lives
To the shifting sands of time

Came a man in search of glory
In the Valley Of The Kings
Unlocked a curse that doomed them all

And so he lived and so he died
And all who conspired paid the price
Death will come swiftly to those who dared defy

SOLO: LT

---

Liner Notes: LT: “This was a song that started from a slow traditional metal riff but ended up turning into a fairly big epic. I think if there was anything that hinted towards where we would end up with LORD, it was this song, with its orchestration and sequenced keyboard parts. This was also the first song we attempted to play to a backing track live. I can still remember the first time the orchestration swelled up just after the solo when we played it; it was pure magic.”

Words: T. Grose Music: T. Grose / T. Yatras

In a wasteland
In a world led astray
Left high and dry
And a million miles from home

Our inception
So far away
But tomorrow lies
Along this lonely road

And with a new day dawning
Searching for our guiding light
We shed our skin and just keep walking
And ride until the night

And we journey on and on
Wheels turning, we’ve only just begun
In time’s fire we burn
As the candle dies, our future lies beyond
On and on

In this story
We re-write book of life
The pages turn
And time just slips away

On our journey
Transcend amorphous lands
We’ve come so far
Yet so much more to go

And as we reach for glory
Old chapters fade away
So turn the page and tell the story
And live another day

SOLO: LT

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Liner Notes: LT: “The main riff from this song was floating around for years before I managed to work out how to use it. It finally came together and the song just kind of spoke to me, suggesting it was really a song about being on a journey, which sat with the theme of the album being a bit reflective of Dungeon’s journey in particular. I really like the proggy odd-time section in the middle especially, even if it did tangle me up more than a few times when I was laying down the solo. I don’t think we quite nailed the harmony vocals on the original Dungeon release so they were all redone for the LORD mix.”

Words: T. Grose Music: T. Grose / T. Yatras

So southern sons
Swallow propaganda
And set sail to leave our shores
So far away, a distant war

No voice to say
No word opposed
The orders handed down from feckless hands
All condemned to die in foreign lands

Eight thousand men to lose their lives
Honour ’til death, the ANZAC pride

Orders taught, we storm the Dardanelles
A futile task, all men condemned to hell
A legend born there as our children fell
ANZACS stand taller than all

Nowhere to hide
The raining fire of guns
Now turn the sapphire waters red
Survivors few and far between the dead

So the time has come
To scale the walls
And run the deadly gauntlet – No Man’s Land
The time to stand or fall is now at hand

SOLO: LT / MAV / LT

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Liner Notes: LT: “Probably the most difficult song on the album from a guitar and drum point of view. The main riff isn’t so bad when you get your head around it but once you put all of the parts together, it’s actually really complex. I remember sitting there in the studio while T.Y. smashed out the blast beat before the breakdown and thinking to myself ‘this guy is off the hook — that’s amazing!’ We tried all kinds of fun things like setting up two ride cymbals so we could get some cool stereo effects happening when he was doing the groovy breakdown, with Mav’s very 90s Helloween inspired solo over the top. It’s also nice that we were able to continue the tradition of writing songs from Australia’s rich history, I think that’s something that’s overlooked by Australian artists quite a lot because we just take that stuff for granted here.”

Words: T. Grose Music: T. Grose / T. Yatras

There’s an empty feeling deep inside
Forever yearning, never seem to find a way
And sometimes I need to run and hide
And leave the darkness cast astray

Try to tell myself I’m still holding on
To all the dreams inside, though they never seemed quite real
Now pain has clouded distant memories
Salted wounds that just won’t heal

Life is a lie – everything I thought I knew is gone
Hard to face another day
Life is a lie – all I ever wanted was the truth

And in knowledge some may find their peace
But sometimes wisdom can turn upon its own
Find a truth that some should never see
A fool’s reward, and better left unknown

Tried to tell myself I’m still holding on
To all the dreams despite I know they’re just not real
Nothing left for me but memories
Nothing left for me to feel

SOLO: LT

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Liner Notes: LT: “I’m not sure what inspired this song now, to be honest, but it was built around the huge main theme at the start and kind of came together quickly after that. The breakdown in the middle where it drops to just the synth and sparse playing really opens up once the song comes back in. We added dozens of extra vocal layers on the redone LORD version to really flesh it out, since I don’t think the original really was as big as I’d hoped it would be.”

Words: T. Grose Music: T. Grose / T. Yatras

Turning our back on society’s treason
Kicked in the face, your rules – we don’t need ’em

We do what we want
And say what we like
Never held back
Remain unchained… UNCHAINED!

Think you’re taking us down?
Well, I’ve got something to say

Won’t beg and we won’t break
Your way we’ll never take
We’re the masters of our fate
We were born with a steelheart

You follow the blind, don’t question the reason
Open your mind – it will lead to your freedom

We’ll be what we want
And say what we please
Never held back
Forever we’re unchained… UNCHAINED!

SOLO: MAV / LT

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Liner Notes: LT: “If there’s any song on the album that sticks out like a sore thumb it’s ‘Steelheart.’ Stu and I had talked about writing a straight-ahead rocker designed to be played live. I really don’t care much for those kinds of songs normally, preferring something a little more layered and nuanced, but the idea was already in my mind and it was as good a time as any to record this. Sure enough, this did turn out to be a great live song and we always get a good singalong happening when we play it. I’m not sure it really fits in with the rest of the album, but it is what it is.”

Words: T. Grose Music: T. Grose / T. Yatras

Born in a barren desert
Walked on the burning sands
Said don’t look back and so we ran
And as our moods were changing
Journey to distant lands
The demolition time began

Oh, a destiny of power
Invincible, forever we survive

Climbing up the mountain
And we’re reaching for the sky
Feeling the hunger burn, it’s do or die
Go one step beyond
To try and reach the other side
On the horizons edge
The final chapter will arise

And as we ride the stormwind
Deny there’s no way out
The resurrection time is now
And in our rise to power
Higher we dare to go
One step beyond the land we know

Oh, and some of us may falter
But nothing can destroy our will inside

Climbing up the mountain
And we’re reaching for the sky
Feeling the hunger and it’s do or die
Go one step beyond
To try and reach the other side
On the horizons edge
The final chapter is in sight

SOLO: LT

There’s no turning back
As we travel on
And the lessons learned
There’s no fairy tales
Oh no…

SOLO: LT

Standing on the mountain
And we’re reaching for the sky
Just beyond our reach, we wonder why
See the world so clearly now
We’ve reached the other side
The future clear at last
The final chapter has arrived

Diving from the mountain
And we’re falling through the sky
Finding a greater truth, another life
Like a phoenix rising up
In flames it’s time to die
All past is laid to rest
The final chapter realised

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Liner Notes: LT: “This song took a while to think about. How do you do the last song of the last album of a band you’ve been in for sixteen years? I really wanted to try and capture the history of it all, so I struck on the idea of building it around song titles and lines from our entire back catalogue. The main triplet riff was actually based on one of Stu’s leftover ideas from ‘One Step Beyond’ and it seemed to be a good fit for what I was trying to do. The song eventually turned into a ten minute long epic with all of the changes, bass solos, even keyboard solos that really channelled a lot of the progressive moments of our earlier releases. The end of the song has a bit of an Easter egg in that the Latin being sung suggests that not everything will die, and the world ‘LORD’ in there. It ends on a grave being dug and last rites being performed and then fades out on a thunder clap. Where that’s cool is I’d already come up with the idea for the opening track of “Ascendence” which began with this ending, but rather than fading out, it continued on to where you hear something clawing at the inside of a coffin and then bursting out with a roar. Very symbolic of the transition from Dungeon to LORD and really joined both eras together.”

Words: T. Grose Music: T. Grose / T. Yatras / S. Marshall

I watched you walk away
Without a second thought for me
You left my life in ruins
But you don’t give a damn

You caused me pain and misery
More than you could ever know
But now there’s nothing left for me
I don’t want you to go

Don’t leave me, don’t leave me – don’t leave me alone
I need you, don’t go – don’t leave me, don’t go

Now I can’t sleep at night
All I see is your face
Where me heart used to be
There’s just an empty space

I wake up every day
Expecting to see you there
If you knew how I felt
I’m sure you’d shed a tear

SOLO: LT

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Liner Notes: LT: “This was one of the songs that really started it all. It wasn’t the first Dungeon song; that honour would go to either ‘Misty Eyes’ or ‘You’re Mine’ depending on if you would class ‘Misty Eyes,’ which pre-dates Dungeon’s first jam by a few weeks, as written by Dungeon at the time. ‘You’re Mine’ came from the second ever jam. ‘Don’t Leave Me’ was written about two months after that, and the first demo of it was recorded in the first few weeks of 1990. It was such a different style of song for what we were aiming for at the time and even now, more than two decades later, it’s still a great song to pull out live every now and then.”

Words/Music: T. Grose

(INSTRUMENTAL)

ALL SOLOS: LT

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Liner Notes: LT: “This song started life as little more than a glorified backing track for me and a friend to solo over. After Dale joined the band, we thought we’d give it a go and we soon found that people really got into the solo duelling and the crazy drumming. This was a drum machine on the demo, of course, and when we finally did use a real drummer when recording this song for the ‘Changing Moods’ EP, we hired none other than drumming royalty, Virgil Donati, who took what we did on the drum machine and added in some freakishly technical rolls and double kick drum work. T.Y. worked really hard to capture that same kind of energy and technicality when we re-recorded this as a bonus on ‘The Final Chapter’ album,”

Words: n/a Music: T. Grose