Project 86 vs Transhumanism (Part I)

We were promised flying cars, but all we'll get are avatars.

Metal always has a deeply spiritual message, whether it’s Satanic ritual music or Christian battle music. In other words, if you’re into shallow, meaningless lyrics, metal is not the genre for you.

While it may seem ironic that the lyrics mean the most in the genre where they’re the hardest to understand, the extra work it takes to listen closely enough to comprehend the words is an essential element of the experience.

I’m thinking specifically of Andrew Schwab, lead singer and lyricist of Project 86. He has chosen an overtly metal sound for OMNI, Part 1, the first half of his band’s new double album, OMNI, and for the first single, Metatropolis, released from that album and the subject of this post. My next post will be about Project 86’s 0 > 1 and Virtual Signal.

Even if you aren’t normally a fan of metal, I really recommend watching these three videos.

Before I lay out my interpretation of Metatropolis—the song and the video—I want to know what you think. So tell me in the comments section. When I inquired of the good folks on No Agenda Social, there was a general consensus that both the Metatropolis and the 0 > 1 videos are dealing with transhumanism. But they weren’t sure what side of the fence Andrew Schwab is on.

As a Project 86 fan since its Drawing Black Lines days, I had a strong hunch where Andrew stands. But before I say more, I thinking hearing from Schwab himself in this interview about the purpose of OMNI is important. As you can hear from that short interview clip with RadioU linked above, the videos for Metatropolis and 0 > 1 are part of a larger film, the soundtrack of which is OMNI. The setting of the videos and the overall film is a dystopian future only 20 years from now, where a tech company (OMNI) has figured out a way to cheat death by merging man’s consciousness with a technological cloud of computing power.

Let’s take a look at the lyrics of Metatropolis:

Amass the neophyte array

New medium for your transition state

Human innovation culminates

In purge, the end of suffering

Extend the actuality

Beyond the ether of decay

Rewrite the ancient text to digitize the narrative

Dance on the grave of curses

Unveil the reimagining

Identify and isolate

Singularity

Disengage the antiquated

Temple to coalesce

Inflame divine complex in this

Metatropolis

Annihilate

Abort the expiration date

Deconstruct sentience, soul and skin

In drive and screen we reanimate

Undead incarnate

Complete annihilation of moral consequence

Rapture in synthesis revealed

Embracing chaos within

Optimize the afterlife

And disconnect the chord to sentience

Augment depravity

Separate body and mind

Avatar, reimagining

Culminate

Merge for spectacle, the dance of days

Upload all consciousness

And we’ll rewrite our programming

Then replace the infinite

We swarm to upload the Augment

Annihilate

It is clear from both the lyrics and the (AI-generated) imagery used in the video that Schwab is presenting the transhumanist “gospel” and interspersing it with specific elements that counterfeit Christianity. The eternal life of the soul is replaced by the “undead incarnate” existence of the avatar, reanimated “in drive and screen.” The rapture of believers before the Day of the Lord is replaced with the uploading of consciousness depicted in the video and with transhumanism’s promise to “rewrite our programming” and “replace the infinite.”

The character that Schwab plays in the Metatropolis video is certainly not designed to engender trust or to make the viewer think that what is being promised is actually a good thing. The promise of being annihilated and becoming part of a “swarm” to “upload the Augment” should not be appealing to you. At least, it’s not to me.

Transhumanism is a revised version of the original lie (see Genesis 3:1–5 KJV):

¹ Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?

² And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden:

³ But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.

⁴ And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:

⁵ For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.

This first lie by the one liar, Satan—depicted here as a cunning, subtle serpent—has deceived mankind from the Garden of Eden . . . through the original transhuman/gene-editing movement recounted in Genesis 6 (with more detail in the Book of Enoch) . . . to the Tower of Babel . . . to the Egyptian and Babylonian religions . . . to the mystery school descendants of those false religions (namely, Kabbalah and Eastern spirituality in all its flavors and its New Age descendants) . . . all the way to the present-day scientism.

The futile quest for salvation without the sacrifice of Jesus Christ continues apace. But it will be just as much a failure in today’s Metatropolis as it has been in every other city throughout history. I don’t even think we’ll get flying cars out of the deal.