No voice remains for the battle chime
No golden offer for the glass and crime
A noose tight
Creux Lies, Sacramento’s stalwart post-punk ensemble, carve ruin and romance with a musical existential crisis: Apocalypto, a single that crackles with retro warmth and modern menace. Ean Clevenger’s deep baritone anchors the track as analogue synths swirl around steel-strung percussion, recalling Depeche Mode’s late‑’80s majesty while marching toward mechanised meltdown.
Beneath the beat, the lyrics map a world undone by digital dominion and ecological exhaustion: gears grind, steel winds, and the noose of control tightens. Humanity stands voiceless and wired, watching its own undoing as laughter rises from sea, soil, and stone – a farewell whispered by the earth itself. The chorus swells with a collision of despair and desire, heartbreak balanced by a relentless rhythm that insists on motion.
Ean Clevenger explains that Apocalypto is neither anthem nor protest; rather, it is a soundtrack for the end, a companion to numbness and despair. It addresses those moments when unsettling news turns the stomach, yet one scrolls past, tears spent and anger spent, hope seeming delusional. The word “Apocalypto” lingered as a final transmission from the subconscious, naming the quiet war surrounding humanity and mocking the planet’s true masters. Clevenger insists the song offers no comfort; instead, it amplifies dread, holds space for collective anxiety, and concedes that perhaps defeat is already sealed. It challenges listeners to confront resignation and wrestle with uncertainty.
Clevenger spoke with Post-Punk.com about the supernatural origins behind the song and what it means:
“Apocalypto came to me in a dream—no words, just noise. Cold and catchy, mechanical and suffocating. It didn’t feel like a vision or a prophecy. It felt like a memory from a future that already gave up on us. The next morning, I saw headlines about another executive order, this one titled Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship. I didn’t feel angry. I didn’t feel shocked. I just felt… tired. Like I was watching the slow erasure of something I never really believed was safe to begin with.
I think a lot of us—rational people, empathetic people—have stopped pretending there’s a way out. Every week, there’s some new law, some new rollback, some new cruelty masked as policy. Civil liberties are dissolving quietly, efficiently. Protests met with riot gear. Books pulled from shelves. Rights treated like bargaining chips. It doesn’t matter who’s in office—the machine keeps grinding forward. Louder during Trump, maybe slicker now, but the outcome feels the same.
Equal rights? It’s a phrase people chant in courtrooms and classrooms while the actual structures rot beneath them. Queer and trans kids are being hunted by legislation. Black and brown lives still hang in the balance. Reproductive freedom is gone for millions. And even the people who say they care seem more focused on optics than outcomes. Nothing is sacred. Nothing is safe.
And the planet—the only one we have—is choking while everyone smiles and signs energy deals. Every speech about green futures is followed by another pipeline, another oil lease, another betrayal. The climate doesn’t care about rhetoric. It just burns. There was a time I believed in change. I thought music, art, protest, presence—something—could shift the weight. But now? It feels like we’re just documenting the collapse. Capturing the flicker before the dark.
The lyric video, cut with stark monochrome shots and bursts of blood‑red, unfolds like a warning broadcast: this is our reckoning, delivered in a single, stunning strike.
Listen to Apocalypto below:
Apocalypto is out now via Creux Lies’ label Zombie Bat Records.
Creux Lies are hitting the road this spring for a tightly packed West Coast run alongside goth-pop torchbearers Vision Video. Kicking off at Los Angeles’ Echoplex on April 12 and wrapping up at San Francisco’s iconic Bottom of the Hill on April 17, the tour includes stops in San Diego and their hometown of Sacramento.
CREUX LIES – Spring Tour 2025
- Sat, April 12 – Los Angeles, CA @ Echoplex
- Mon, April 14 – San Diego, CA @ Casbah
- Wed, April 16 – Sacramento, CA @ Harlow’s
- Thu, April 17 – San Francisco, CA @ Bottom of the Hill
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