I composed most of this song over 25 years ago. At that time, I was a kid listening to many Finnish metal bands such as Amorphis and Sentenced, whose influence I think can be heard in this song. It is no coincidence that the first word of the opening track on the album is "Shapeless" - a nod to Amorphis, whose music, both old and new, has accompanied me throughout my life from my youth to this very day.

The lyrics of the song serve as an introduction to the album, recounting the lengthy process that led to the release of my own music. This song narrates a long journey, during which I discovered the path lying ahead of me, a path I deliberately deviated from during my younger years. Sometimes you must delve deep and embrace your true nature to find the way you were supposed to walk. 

This song is actually the first song I ever wrote the lyrics for. When I wrote it I was so fed up with all the disinformation and hate that's spread across the internet. It's crazy how some people get so deep into various conspiracy theories that it ends up ruining their reputation, wellbeing, or even their whole life.

You've got these false prophets, whether they're religious leaders living off your money, promising to save you from sins or threats they made up in the first place. Or political leaders pushing for war, or faith healers with their empty promises. The thing they all have in common is that they'd be nothing without the misled masses.

The worst part is how they manipulate people's emotions to get what they want. This song's lyrics really delve into the messed-up mind that's been misled, trapped in a state of cognitive dissonance.

The music for this song started with this catchy guitar riff that just kept playing in my head. I put it all together during the fall of 2021 and re-recorded the album version the year later. 

I first published this song as a attached intro to the song 'Pax Humana.' Due to production reasons, I decided to separate it for the album and turn it into its own song. I composed a faster second part for it, which maintains the same tempo as 'Pax Humana.' The original composition of this song dates back to the last millennium when I was inspired by composers such as Sibelius, Mozart, Bach, and Prokofiev.

When I later composed 'Pax Humana,' I aimed for something ominous, menacing, yet melodic classical piece for its intro. It was during this process that I revisited this old song from my drawer. A decade ago I had one very vivid dream about world history. I wanted to remember that dream by naming a song after it as it appears that the essence of that dream is becoming more and more relevant in the present day. 

Gods demanding sacrifices and priests blessing war machines... Is warmongering and fear of others a built-in human characteristic around which religions and governments are built? Or is it the other way around - a delusion created by the administrators of power structures who really have something to lose or gain from it?

One thing that is certain is that if we continue down this path there will be only one big sacrificial smoke left. What kind of gods would thirst for that? Or is it just us people taking a leap of faith into the cold emptiness?

I wrote this song in the fall of 2021, when it became more and more clear that another large-scale war was about to break out in Europe. Musically, it represents the faster and colder side of Brazen Forgery.

Can you even get more clichéd than finding inspiration for metal lyrics from the book of Revelation? If you're familiar with the work, you know it's a complex and symbolic piece of writing. That's probably why it has inspired so many different interpretations over the years. Personally, I don't think it was a vision induced by a mushroom trip; rather, it seems like a deliberately cryptic religious-political text.

Regardless, I was curious to delve into that mental landscape where you can imagine supernatural visions of significant moments in human history. I wondered how it is that someone feels that their vision is so important that they're driven to spread their message, shaping the culture for millennia to come. It's also interesting how some random thoughts can turn into self-fulfilling prophecies, even though they were created with entirely different intentions from their eventual impact on the world.

About the music, I originally composed the bridge and the chorus of this song back in 1998, but I took them apart from their original context and composed this song as a whole during the recording process in 2022. As some other songs of mine, I can't label this song to a specific genre of metal. There are some hints of doom, gothic, black/postblack metal etc, but I don't know where to put it.

Believe it or not, I've been strolling around on this planet for quite some time, and you know what? The crazy idea has actually popped into my head that, just maybe, one fine day, I might actually die! I wanted to create a grand requiem that reflects my thoughts on death and the continuation of life in some form. However, the song's backstory isn't personal; it's about the last moments of someone who fell victim to witch persecutions.

The song can be divided into three parts: the first deals with accepting death, the interlude with physical death, and the third part with transitioning into collective consciousness, like living on through others' memories, becoming a legend, or even a saint. The lyrics might be open to interpretation, but so are the answers to life's big questions.

Musically, except for the interlude, the song is one of my earliest compositions dating back when I was 15 years old. The piano melody in the middle part and all the arrangements, lyrics and vocals came to me spontaneously during the recording, as I felt the song needed something delicate to balance the heavy funeral doom metal.

The Lines of Succession is a lyricless outro for the album, composed in three parts at some point between 1999 and 2011. The final adjustments to the composition, arrangement, and guitar solos were made in the autumn of 2022. Over the years, this song has served as a lullaby for my loved ones, played with an acoustic guitar.