From the album Wake
This is a rage anthem about police violence that gets stuck in its own contradiction. The narrator condemns sadism while fantasizing about torture, wants accountability while admitting karma fails, and rails against a god complex while constructing one. The song knows systemic violence breeds more violence but can't escape that loop.
Load it up, person down, shoot to kill / Empty clip, shoot to kill, make sure that no one is looking
The mechanical rhythm mimics procedure, like this is rehearsed protocol. The anonymity of 'person down' strips the victim of identity before the narrative even starts, which is the first erasure the song protests but also participates in.
Let's sit you down, peel all your nails back / Now do you feel all the fear you lack?
The narrator becomes the torturer, wanting the cop to experience powerlessness through physical pain. This mirrors exactly the dynamic being condemned. The question 'do you feel the fear you lack?' assumes empathy can be beaten into someone, which is the same logic behind badge-carrying violence.
Are you a god? Are we supposed to live beneath you?
Framing police as false gods puts the narrator in the position of iconoclast, someone with moral authority to judge. But the repetition sounds less like a question and more like an accusation the narrator already believes, which makes it function as its own kind of power claim. Nobody here is uncertain about hierarchy.
Kick someone enough and they will not get up
This line repeats six times total, turning from observation into mantra. It's describing systemic brutality but also sounds like instruction, like the song is teaching the listener how power works. The ambiguity between warning and threat is maybe the most honest thing here.
Karma works too slow
This admission dismantles the moral universe the song pretends to operate in. If justice doesn't self-correct, then the torture fantasy isn't righteous anger, it's just vigilante desire. The song knows this but proceeds anyway, which might be the real subject underneath the protest.
The speaker would be surprised to learn their torture fantasy reveals they don't actually want accountability or reform. They want to inhabit the same power position they're questioning, which is the trap the song can't exit. Rage this pure doesn't know where to put itself except into more violence.