Nazareth, but not the way I first thought
Initially on my listen of Nazareth, (and specifically the verse about the tape, gun, and mirror), I thought this was literally Sleep demanding that Vessel shoot his girlfriend to prove he will give up on everything and devote himself to Sleep.
However, lately I have been toying with the thought that the songs are thematically grouped, not nessesarily chronologically grouped.
TW for the usual stuff, sh etc.
We know Sleep thrives on emotional pain and turmoil. Sleep is arguably either a narcissist or psychopath, possibly both. In my personal experience surviving an abusive narcissist, they are never content simply hurting their victims. They want to inflict their own pain and twisted self into them. To mess up the innocent the way they are broken inside.
The line reads "see if she can guess what a hollow point does to a naked body", however nowhere does it say *her* body. We infer from Atlantic that Vessel may have, at some point, attempted to end things.
My thought is, what if that was the events of Nazareth? Through Sleep's constant manipulation, Vessel snaps- taping his girlfriends mouth shut "eat the tape", shoving her into the bathroom, following her in, and firing on himself. That would leave anyone traumatized- trauma that (and this is a bit of a stretch) Sleep could potentially feed on.
I feel it doesn't break the narrative either- when I was first discovered sh-ing, my abuser once put a kitchen knife on the table in front of me and screamed at me to do it- if thats what I want so badly. However, my abuser was not a primordial diety and I was like 10 so obviously I had a different reaction but I digress, point was that feels exactly like something Sleep would enjoy. "F\*\*\* her up" and "show you what you look like from the inside" all at once.
Sleep feeds on Vessel, and seemingly his pain, and Sleep's cocky, gloating attitude and almost reassuring tone in Jericho still feel to me like if this alternative interpretation of Nazareth happened, that would also quite fit the bill.
Thoughts?