Blue Sky Theory

The album can be seen as comprised of three parts, which hinge on the narrative of the lyrics. The songs Spirits of the Law and Can't Catch Jacques introduce the antagonistic, hubristic Lionhead Nation, a marbleized country with little compassion or sympathy for its people, especially for the less fortunate among them. Reacting to an epidemic of homelessness, they abandon reason and instead clench like a fist to throttle those they perceive to be ungrateful leeches, as well as those who speak out against the national neuroses.

The first third of the album describes how the darkness of parched hearts eclipses what might have been a bright future. In the songs The Mandate, Blueprints for the Tortoise, and The Smash, pride has finally become pathological. The Lionhead Nation, which has long harbored a morbid sense of self-worth and disdain for foreign cultures, blames the rest of the world for its seemingly incurable problems. The way its citizens see it, if globalization is truly inexorable, then only by owning the globe itself are they protected from undesirable outside influences. And to help them take the globe, they put into service a hitherto unknown tool of war, the Tortoise. Marvelously automated, impervious, regenerative, the "turtle tank" rampages around the world unchecked, but in typical Frankenstein complex fashion, its wrath is soon misplaced. When the sewer-dwelling dregs of society burst out like an army, the Tortoise turns on its homeland, laying the Lionhead Nation to waste in a matter of years.

The songs Restless, 33rd: Her Blue Sky Theory, Canary Balm, and 35th: Mammoths and Men glimpse the lives of various characters struggling to survive in a post-apocalyptic nightmare where continental glaciers encroach over razed cities and nobody remembers that the sky used to be blue. A well-intentioned baker runs out of flour for the feeding lines; A mother confounds her son with legends about the ever-vigilant Tortoise death-machine and the misguided promise of a welcoming Antarctica; and John the Mirthless (the narrater of the song 32nd) follows the enigmatic Ingrid through a snowy wasteland called DisOrient. The days run into eachother seamlessly as they march. But slowly the girl's mysteries unravel until it seems she may be otherwordly, driven by a mission John does not understand. With the monolithic Tortoise stalking in their wake, Ingrid leads John to the Bivouac, a settlement whose inhabitants are unknowingly sitting on a literal wellspring of hope, a subterranean secret that may bring life back to the smashed and fruitless world.