Present Day, July 10, 2026
Seven days. The complete shape of Sanctified Hunger:
Well Trained opens the album because it describes the precondition: the systematic training of judgment out of the person who will eventually be asked to do something that requires the absence of judgment. I Was Never Yours is the counter-declaration: the self that was never available for institutional ownership, regardless of what was claimed. Litany of Dust is the empty prayer, the ritual calcified past meaning.
The Fate We Let Arise is the hardest track to listen to, because it is the one that assigns responsibility to the witness: what accumulates when we watch and do not act. Their Final Test is the reckoning the institutions have been assigning to everyone else, finally arriving for them. I Am He is the false prophet, the man who has found in divine appointment the perfect container for his own appetite for control.
Observed Devotion is the view from outside the ritual, which is the only view I have ever had. The Damned is the inversion of institutional damnation. You Are is the direct address. Holy War is the five centuries of evidence. I Am Crying is the cost. In My Name closes everything.
Plus, for those who purchase directly at morellarecords.com: a cover of XTC’s Dear God. Andy Partridge asked the question in 1986. I have been asking it since 1473. July 17. The testimony is complete.