Track By Tracks: Fleetburner - Fleetburner (2020)

First of all, thank you for asking me to do this. I personally believe lyrics are personal, and open to interpretation, but I can definitely explain what was meant with the storyline and where it came from. 

I believe that music, and metal in particular is there to amplify your thoughts. To exaggerate things to such monstrous proportions that your own life seems easier to cope with in comparison. It’s why metal makes me feel better. The thoughts below are not necessarily mine, but a way of amplifying things I have experienced, thoughts I’ve had, into a storyline that is so grand, that I can oversee my own life better in retrospect. Not everyone will understand, but I believe this is the point of art. It’s deeply personal, and connects us on primal levels. I can only hope someone out there needs this and now it’s there to have. 

1. The Land:

A young boy stands on land, looking around and sees naught but war and distress. His family broken, his trust in mankind, as he decides it may be time to leave all this behind. He is born with the inherited guilt of having to fix what his parents broke before him and understands very soon that he is unable to do so. 

2. The Beach: 

The boy stands in amazement of the world outside. He stares to the places that seem calm and peaceful, here the ocean, and dreams of being there. An unreachable horizon looms, and he angers at the ocean for not helping him. No one in the outside world sees your pain unless you speak it out loud. He asks the ocean “why won’t you carry me (the ocean floor drops) and in my mind, the ocean stands for depth, meaning, wisdom. He is too young to handle the depths of life and therefore cannot navigate those waters. 

The crushing guilt of leaving behind what you once loved is his first thought, his first unprotected venture into the mind’s depth. The ocean, or better, his mind, asks him “how will you navigate the wild currents of your mind, when every thought will come down on all you left behind”. How will you live with yourself in peace knowing you left those who loved you. 

3. The breakwater:

The boy starts learning (building his ship) and asking the world around him questions. He still angers at his own mind for not being able to answer the questions he has himself, but the ocean answers. The self-doubt, the egoism involved with leaving things behind, even though they are harmful, is ever present. “Every wave you hide your face from the world”. 

4. Open Water:

The first single we released, the boy now older and somewhat wiser is slowly learning to navigate life. His ship is built and he is the first to set sail with a self-made ship that works. Others build one in jealousy and follow him. The Fleetburner cries for wisdom but is unheard as others would only destroy any land they encounter. The boy is chased, and the fleet wants what he has without knowing what exactly it is. All the boy, now man, wants is to steer away from the world of man, hurt and lack of compassion. 

5. The Fleet:

Many times in life I have encountered people staggering their way through the days, not knowing why and where they were going, but complaining all the way. To me, this is the fleet. I try to help, guide, reach hands, but too often these people simply want what you have, take what they can from you and then consider you the enemy when you have nothing left to give. This literally goes from people taking your talents, your vision, your way of looking at life, learning to navigate their own lives better because of your help, and later considering you worthless. “Their anchors fired upon you, false tokens of admiration” Never look back… 

6. The Passenger:

Our second single.The chorus melody line was actually written by Lars Palmqvist of Scar Symmetry, who was one of the options for actually being the lead singer, but his schedule did not allow it. This song describes how the Fleetburner sails across an ocean of reaching hands and is nearly sunk by the clinging. He decides to save the only one he can reach and drags him aboard. He then tries to calm the person, this passenger, and teach him about life. Taking control of things you feel incapable of, and pushes the person into being himself, sadly to no avail. 

7. The Deck: 

Sitting on a quiet deck, the Fleetburner continues to speak to the passenger but feels he cannot save him. He tries explaining that there is beauty around if you know where to look. I myself (Kevin) have been surrounded by a lot of depressed people and know the hurt they go through, but have always fought back those feelings, that darkness, by going head-on into the opposite. I use my guitar, my music, my heart to create and try to help others, but I see too many people not even wanting to solve their problems, and this irks me to no end. I strongly believe, and have said this to too many people, that we all have a responsibility that help others. To stand before another when needed. That if one person lets go his faith in life, it’s the man behind him that falls, not himself. People don’t realise this, but it’s what I have fought for to explain for many years. Your depression kills the man behind you that you forgot to look at. 

8. The course:

There’s a choice to be made. It’s hard going through life seeing everything. Understanding the uselessness of things, how big the void is. “I walk through life with shattered souls all around me”. This is the moment where the Passenger starts to believe all he learned is his own mind. That the ship below his feet is HIS. A struggle ensues and the Fleetburner is thrown overboard. But no one, including the Fleetburner, realised that he cannot drown in an ocean of his own thoughts, the depth IS him, and it flows into him. “And I thought it would be the death of me, as I sank into the blue”. The loneliness that comes with leaving everything behind can be all-encompassing, but also liberating. 

9. Below the Waves: 

The third video and single I made for the album. Making the video was of course a deeply emotional ride, and we tried to capture what the whole album is about in one video. 

This song is about the flame that some of us have inside. That artists’ fire, that raging fire that can destroy everything around you if you don’t take care of it, but van also light up and warm the entire world. Man who has none, wants it. 

10. The Deep:

For many reasons this song means the most to me. 

I will keep the reasons to myself but suffice to say that magic happened on this song with Christopher Amott playing a heartbreaking solo over a riff that has been with me for a very long time that means the world to me. 

“The deep” is about facing yourself. In this song the ocean has become one with the Fleetburner and recedes. The Fleet drops to the ocean floor and is given a choice to start anew. On the ocean floor, ships stranded, they all stand, until a throne appears. 

11. The Endless: 

The Fleet decides en masse to run for the throne, disregarding a path of wisdom, love and empathy. 

The voice of the now receded ocean speaks to the Fleetburner and tells him there is no other option than to cry a new ocean, drowning all that is there, the Fleet and everything in it and never look back. The cycle is unending, and we need to navigate our lives accordingly. “Beneath the hull the burning beast still thrashes”.