THE RIOT BEFORE
SO LONG, THE LIGHTHOUSE

I saw The Riot Before in a basement towards the end of last summer and it felt like the first time I had seen a great pop-punk band in a long long time. It was packed, every sweaty body had a fist in the air and lungs blowing out. This EP shows the Riot Before at their best, channeling Jawbreaker, Dillinger Four and Billy Bragg to continue to make pop-punk way more culturally relevant than screamo will ever be.

click here for the whole album!
click here to pre-order the 7" from Fall of the West!

Download specific tracks:
1. Threat Level Midnight
2. The Uttica Stare
3. The Mirror's Curse
4. Jam is a Four Letter Word
5. Redneckties

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LYRICS!

Threat Level Midnight
The light on the wall from the candle’s flame / Defies all the books filled with old clichés / Though I didn’t doubt the veracity / Of flickering belief / The truth evident in fire’s repose / Consumes blackened wick motionless and slow / This proves polar to what I’ve been told / A false reality / Excite the aristocracy’s decline / Reject inherited design / And purge the habits of the assumed life / The lies dressed in clothing of the tame / The eyes set ablaze in the altar’s flame / Denied so we can see the world the same / Bartered security / To plunge far below all the rusted thought / To run to the borders of all we’re taught / Expunge the corrupt and expired lot / Of mass identity / The voice within is screaming / It echoes off the ceiling / This house is not worth living / If I first don’t own the floor / I’m burning down to build back / With the skeptic and the cynic / I’ll court the optimistic / Then open up the door

The Uttica Stare
Stuck running circles convinced I was changing lanes / Thought time was my companion then found out it held the reigns / With every year that passes by I stand up and proclaim / That this is all I’m becoming here’s one more of the same / A life anticipating what will and won’t come next / I forgot where I stood and placed my hands / Into pockets deepening of memory’s regrets / And all those things I’d never understand / So I sing…Whoa / There’s a bar on the corner a stool where I sit / And drink the cheapest beer and talk with my friends / Till our eyes get hazy smoke from cigarettes / Fills rooms with the finest deceit / There’s a pan on the burner that we’re swimming in / The water is warming but we won’t admit / That pretty soon things might just get serious / There’s time later for our retreat / We all know that it’s not 212 ‘till we are 30 / That’s when we must fold all our maps / And abandon those expectations and dreams fleeting / But right now please raise up your glass / And we sing…Whoa / I must have missed the day when future turned present then past / I thought I could drive down the road without moving my place on the map / I’m still getting used to the distance I’ve traveled / How long this timeline’s tail has grown / Each morning brings youth a little more unraveled / But doesn’t replace with adult / We’ll find a way / Yeah, we’ll be ok / No it’s not too late / We’ll sing these songs from our hearts and not let fear determine out fate

The Mirror’s Curse
Car crash on the open highway / Blood flows from our lifeless body / Transplant the organs at the hospital / The miracle is though we die were saving lives / The requiem unheard by the insides / Bomb blast on a crowded front line / We’re hit and there isn’t much time / Give up our water, food, and bullets to / The soldiers who will run ahead and leave the dead / The battle won before our empty eyes / Everyday I live a life I’m trying to forget / Desperately I want to see the world beyond that reflection I focus on / The mirror’s curse does not come when broken / It’s worse as one / Flags fly over bleak horizons / Countries killing those outside them / Lines drawn in dirt and sand are simply that / Let’s burn the maps that color ground, divide the town / Erase borders until one world is found / ‘Cause we say that we want a difference / We say we reject their system / But I see that our own agenda is just theirs polarized / Let’s sacrifice this time / Everyday let’s forget our lives and make our breath a gift / So when we say we hate their lies we are not hypocrites

Jam is a Four Letter Word
A slow decay / All around advancing entropy / Exposing apple cores and planting seeds / A generation stakes its claim / One rolls away /To abandon moss and apathy / To embrace the pull of gravity / Live a life outside of shade / All I ever wanted was a place where I could stay / When examined from up close the mountain would seem far away / It’s there the thoughts inside my head would match the surrounding space / And I’d feel safe / A fire escape / An exit sign that shines eternally / A way of life in an emergency / And this city is burning / All I ever wanted was a road to carry me / Far from blind tradition and predictability / My bones have grown eyes have been shown a new world that before me / So I must leave / Now I face my body east and begin running / I’m climbing over peaks and through vast valleys / I never wanted peace it never let me live / So I fight this civil war that’s inside of me / I’ll run from shore to shore fleeing apathy / I’ll never fall asleep I never will give in

Redneckties
The sunrise lights the sky as it breaks over the horizon / Blue suit and red tie getting ready for the day’s decisions / In a luxury car on the interstate / Calm and composed speaking dead words to deaf ears that won’t listen / He casts a vote and sends off guns, bombs, bullets and your children / To fight a foreign war to meet an unknown fate / Then outside on the steps at a news conference / He opens up his mouth and purges / “This is a unique time in our own history” / And it takes all of his strength to not laugh / As he talks of freedom, sacrifice, responsibility / Asks for God’s blessing of his war / Lights up a cigar and he drives home / The bombs blast light the sky as they burst over the heads of thousands / The innocent cry as their homes are crushed with family in them / They are collateral they aren’t significant / Now overseas the soldiers work hard to carry out all their orders / Given to them by the men in red ties still within their borders / Their legs are paralyzed their mouths are still working / Back behind a desk in his office / He practices a speech he must give / …To a family / Home to a warm bed / Home to the affluence for which he voted / Himself is all he thinks of the days / Then a bomb falls upon a poor farmer’s son / Who needed money for an education / And he screams / “This is the ending of my life’s brief history” / It takes of his strength in that last breath to cry out / “I died for glory, honor, my beloved country” / And the lids cover the light inside his eyes / Just like the flag over the coffin where he lies / Oh yeah, that hand over the camera when he arrives / How his family’s pain will be politicized / By all those heartless men wearing their redneckties