With their latest record “The Flesh and Blood“, Leipzig based WAYSTE (featured on IDIOTEQ last year) delivered a bleak, dirty blend of hardcore with a southern punch and edge that successfully blends dark melodies with massive riffage and electrifying dynamic. Their new offering has affirmed WAYSTE are one of the most vital and exciting (post?) hardcore bands in Germany and to do so in such thriving times is only more awe inspiring. Listen to the full record and check out the band’s first hand commentary on each and every track below!
01. I and You
Manu: The opener I And You is about the superficial world we live in. Including myself and the people around me, we are all trying to represent a certain lifestyle. Even if it’s an I-don’t-give-ashit-attitude or whatever I sometimes think we’re all playing stupid roles sometimes, because we are taking ourselves way too seriously and are in desperate need for attention. I had to write the lyrics for the song after we recorded the instruments, so there was no way to change anything. I had a really hard time writing those lyrics.
my skin and bones grow thin and old, I’m running out of time. I claw my goods, objectify my wish to draw a line. I make you see projections of a self-portrait I made. and wonder if you take the bait, I wonder if you’re looking up to me.
my personality is a reflection. it mirrors in the way I dress. I need to be wrapped in perfection. so I’m gathering items well overthought.
you are what you work. you are what you wear. you are what you deserve. you are what you’re worth.
our opinions in correlation. sharing identical splendid ideals. try to avoid every confrontation. please don’t remind me of reality.
you are what you work. you are what you wear. you are what you deserve. you are what you eat. you are where you live. you are what you’re worth. am I who I am?
02. The Great Disguise
Micha: This one is about not being able to be happy and always falling back into old patterns. Like there is another person in my body, who thrives on unhappiness. And this person comes out more that I would like, to needlessly fail the people I love.
I am pandemonium! heart black, rats flee, I´m well disguised. the face behind the face, a cynical grin with four eyes and a mischievious glance.
I tried on some new ones, but this old skin fits me so well.
Jesus won´t save me anymore. after I refused him so many times.
so the devil had to take over the wheel.
I will bruise you deep, but there is a chance that we will make it alive. you will see what you have, from this interference. I told you up front! please love me despite this distortion. put me down or let me in.
03. Sever and Serve
Micha: This one is about how the death of my grandfather made me contemplate my relation to my parents and how I always felt alienated because of completely different beliefs, be it religion or my worldview in general. So I felt stuck in the doorway, between hating a lot of what I was raised with and still feeling this connection and love to the people who raised me.
I was the needle that kept you awake, I was the bottle that let you survive. always needed, but never desired. to first keep you sane, but bring you death in the end.
the cogs keep on turning but I am outside the machine. a hated system I grew to understand. I stand in the doorway as long as I can feel, I cannot go out but also never come in. the flesh and blood was never on the same page. but still, love crawled beneath. your rattling bones shivered me awake. as we layed to rest your weary head.
I was the needle that kept you awake, I was the bottle that let you survive. always needed but never desired, to first keep you sane but bring you death in the end.
the flesh and blood was never on the same page. but still, love crawls beneath. lay to rest my weary head! Lay my head to rest!
04. Mourn
Manu: The song unfolds a scenario of someone who lost the most important person of her life. It tries to catch the absolute loneliness of a person being left over, trying to collect the pieces of a self-concept that has been directly connected to another person’s existence for a lifetime. If you miss someone over a longer period of time, your mind starts losing memory of how exactly the person looked. So you start fighting against oblivion realizing it’s a fight you can’t win and your memory will start to tease you by slightly modifying the person’s face. It’s a song about loss, loneliness and the fear of growing old.
of dust we are to dust we turn. we’re giving back what we have learned. the borrowed plants that we have sought. are dying in deserted ground. the times I tried to lift your mask. your face erased from photographs. it must have been a thousand times. the more I try the more you’re lost.
I woke up in the middle of the night. tightened limbs to the buzz of the light. I was terrified, I was terrified. is this your shape at the bottom of the stairway,
or is this how it feels to go insane? my dream spat me out again.
you are the face in the dark. you are the dirt under my fingernails. you are the place that I was dreaming of. you are the sound of my heart.
of dust we are to dust we turn. we’re giving back what we have learned. the borrowed plants that we have sought. are dying in deserted ground. the times I tried to lift your mask. your face erased from photographs. it must have been a thousand times. the more I try the more you’re lost.
05. Chosen
Manu: In my opinion the claim of truth, that is inherent to a common perception of faith, is a very dangerous, and most of all arrogant thing. The process of losing those kind of beliefs that I was taught as an infant was long and difficult for me. Now when I am confronted to religiously motivated opinions that are insisting to be the truth based on non-rational arguments, I can’t keep myself from being sarcastic. So the words for this song are exatly that: a sarcastic reckoning with fundamentalistic views.
I am not a marionette, not a prophet or a chosen one. and I am not an object of the augury. shame on me!
condemn the oracle, I’m not afraid of the ire of the Gods. tear down the sacred fountain. it brought us nothing but fear and despair. I’d rather be banned from the salvaged, than to persist in the unknown. and I am willing to draw the consequence all on my own.
this isn’t omphalos or the place where the eagles met. we’re not standing at the center of the world. no we don’t! the endless overrating of ourselves makes us think that we are worth a little more. but we’re not. we’re not worth a fucking thing.
I’m not a chosen one I’m not a chosen one I’m not a… I’m not a chosen one (I am the prodigal son) I’m not a chosen one I’m so much better now.
06. Killing Pace
Micha: This song more or less builds on The Great Disguise. At some point I tried to overcome my old patterns and to keep this this unpleasant side of me in check, but I soon realized that I needed help for that, even if I didn´t want to admit it. Like a guiding hand, not only leading me on this edge, where there was always the danger of falling back into old habits, but also, if need be, slapping me back into reality when i´ve gone off the rails.
oh holy mountains oh holy sea! the poison and mist was all I could feel. I leveled them down and drank it all up; the more I inhaled the clearer I got.
we started out low, got high. spiraled down fast, got stuck beneath. we pulled each other out and flew right into the flame.
hold me down, spit me out, rip me apart and undo me for good.
oh holy mountains oh holy sea! the poison and mist was all I could feel. I leveled them down and drank it all up; the more I inhaled the clearer I got.
hold me on the cliff it bends but never breaks I dance on the edge collosal force on every inch we slipped right through the crack.
hold me down, spit me out, rip me apart and undo me for good.
07. Holy Smoke
Manu: This is a very angry and disappointed song. It is mainly about how endlessly bewildered I am of how the childish, mystical faith, that some people in my very own family have, is resulting in blind hate towards muslims. I am so full of accusations when I think about it, I kind of had to channel that feeling into an aggressive, straight-forward song.
you think you speak in tongues of the righteous, but tell stories in a children’s voice. explain your life in miracles. in grief you see grace.
the dead are repatriates or forever lost. how close or distant from God can you be?
how can you be so sure?
in your heaven I see hell in your faith I see tender lies in your love I see hatred
in your God I see the worst of you.
if this is your God, can the devil be worse? and if you can still believe, is it a gift or a curse?
why have you poisened me with the tears of a God who only cries for the chosen? oh holy smoke I’ve been inhaling you for years.
08. Fall
Manu: These four lines are trying to describe a very personal experience I had dealing with how death can look like. It’s pretty dark.
please nail my useless wings to your chest and hold me when I fall into the dark.
09. Elder
Manu: This was actually one of the first songs we have written as a band. It is about the thought of growing old and realizing that you’ve never learned to handle your personal malfunctions. I imagine it to be such a shattering moment, realizing you spent all your life fighting against the aspects of your personality that you really dislike and in the end you fail.
my mornings begin before sunrise. I know I pay the price for the way I’ve been living. I got no patience, forgive me my wrath. my body’s in pain and I can’t find the way out of bed alone.
my heels are still burning. my feet are still hurting. I am just tired of serving, now that I have to be served.
all meaning has been washed away by time. everything that I loved has been fading to…I don’t where. so I spend the last days of my existence waiting for you to give me your precious time as a gift, that I feel sorry for.
’cause my mornings begin before sunrise. and I got so much time for regret.
10. Snake Oil
Micha: All three of us were raised and currently live in the eastern part of Germany, were right wing parties and -movements are disgustingly strong right now and I always wondered how these leading personalities of these movements manage to rile up such a big amount of people. Especially in Germany, were every single person should know the awful history of nationalism. How can tens of thousand of people chant racist and xenophobic stuff without much consequences or even with political approval? I think, besides of a lot of other reasons, it is also the work of a few charismatic personalities who are preying on the socially disadvantaged, feeding lies, offering easy answers to very complex situation and using their fear for their political gains. It works and it fucking terrifies me!
all lights on you, take every possibility to hide! these ugly minds can only wallow in darkness. they are selling salvation to dim heads. they are selling frail souls to the devil of ignorance.
piss disguised as wine. mendacity is the blood in their veins. complexity reduced to bits that we can easily devour.
hybris in extraordinary fashion.
they know their craft, they say. they make the blind see. the crippled are hailing their new messiah.
mendacity is the blood in their veins. so turn on the light, these ugly minds will only wallow in darkness.
11. Pious Brother
Manu: Pious Brother is a very sarcastic song and is connected to Holy Smoke pretty much. It illustrates how some people are convinced to know the truth or have the right belief. This is quite often resulting in an unbelievably arrogant point of you, thinking it makes those people being superior to any human being believing in anything else.
so I am pointing at these people, ’cause they fill me with disgust. and I am not like them, no, I am not like them. they are loud and they are strange. they are violating every sense. and I am better than them, oh, I am better than them. for their morals are insincere, I am better than them. they live in sin.
so may the mercy of God lead them back to the right path and let the spirit befall their souls. they’re stubborn and deserve his anger. so I am thankful I’m not like them.
so I am pointing at these people, ’cause they fill me with distrust. And I don’t talk to them, oh, but I will pray for them.
they live in sin. they live in sin. and I know that they won’t change.
and if you live in sin, I will proof you wrong. I will proof you wrong.
12. Losing Touch
Manu: When I think about this song I always remember a situation when I visited my grandmother for the first time. I didn’t know her at all, but when I saw her the first time she was bedridden and couldn’t do anything anymore. It was an incredibly dark and overwhelmingly sad image seeing somebody laying in bed like that. The song also connects with Elder in a way and is about the footprints you leave in the lives of family members and people who are close.
this bitterness clamps its arms around your feet. close your eyes and feel your ankles dig deep into the ground. the desire of transfering life through our folded hands.
this helplessness lets you glide through the mess. close your eyes and feel your feet being dragged and you lose touch of what you haven’t been aware for all the years.
I’m losing touch to the ones that I love.
forgive me my anger, forgive me my faint. but you are the reminder of what I held in hands but lost.
feed me just as you were fed. soothe me while I welk. I don’t blame you that you can’t forgive on my dying bed.
