Altitude Theory — Contour Lines

From "Cartography of the Vertical" — the debut album by ALTITUDE THEORY, on Berkana Records. 🎧 Subscribe to Berkana Records for original rock, new tracks daily → https://www.youtube.com/@BerkanaRecor... — LYRICS — I used to read myself in roads — which way the kitchen faced, who lived two doors down, the route to work. A flat map. East and west. The lateral life. Then I started reading the brown rings instead — the contours — and it all stood up on end. Close rings mean steep. I live where the rings are close. Every one of them a line I only crossed by leaving something on it. There's a name I answered to down on the valley floor. I don't go down there anymore. Don't ask me which direction. Ask me how high. Don't ask me where I'm from. Ask me what I'm not carrying. I'm redrawing this in contour lines — elevation, not direction; how far up, not which way. And every line I climb above is a thing I set down on it and a thing I won't go back for. Read me by my altitude. Read me by the air that's getting thin. The treeline's a contour. The col is a contour. The last place anyone waved up at me — a contour, and it's under cloud now. You want the legend? Here's the legend: every ring is a year, and each year weighs less than the one below it. I'm redrawing this in contour lines — elevation, not direction; how far up, not which way. And every line I climb above is a thing I set down on it and a thing I won't go back for. Read me by my altitude. Read me by the air that's getting thin. There is no compass for this. A compass only knows the flat earth — which way, and never how high. The one true instrument points straight down: the drop. And the drop says everything you were is somewhere underneath you now. I'm just a column of thin air with a heartbeat in it. Higher. Lighter. Higher. Lighter — I'm redrawing this — contour lines — how far up, not which way. Every line I climb above — I set it down. I won't go back. Read me by my altitude. Read me by the air — the air — that's getting thin. #progressiveMetalcore #progMetal #aimusic — About this release: the lyrics, song structure, theme, and album arc are written from scratch and human-curated through a deliberate songwriting process — not auto-generated. AI music generation is used only to render the final audio from those curated lyrics and style direction. Visuals are AI-assisted.