Akrea

Lebenslinie, (a German word which translates to "lifeline") is the name of Akrea's first album, and the album art is deliberately surreal. The picture is one which shows a woman from behind who is standing in the palm of a giant hand, and on the hand is pictured a road, which the woman is standing at the beginning of. The way she stands seems reluctant, uncertain and a bit afraid of the unknown. Obviously, this is not a picture that was taken without being retouched. It seems that the hand is a real picture which has been retouched to fit the style of the rest of the picture, and everything but the hand has been illustrated/painted. The color of the picture is mostly earth tones (brown, tan, green) and inky black in the background. Interestingly, the hand seems to radiate light.

The picture uses blank space only in the background, which is completely dark and serves to bring the objects/subjects into the foreground. In the foreground, we see the aforementioned girl, hand, and road. The girl may symbolize innocence, given her body language and white dress (the white dress is a symbol which is especially powerful in western culture, usually used by the bride in a wedding). The hand is meant to seem huge and powerful, and it reaches down into the darkness, radiating light and lifting the girl up from the darkness. All around the hand and the girl fly huge black crows, which swoop and scream at the girl as she considers taking the road. It seems that the path is one that leads out of darkness, as the path is surrounded by decaying trees and dry dirt, and as the path stretches on the foliage becomes more green and lush, meaning a path out of corruption and decay into purity and life. Even on the greenest trees, the leaves are more yellow and rotten towards the edges of the hand, implying a safety only in the very hollow of the hand, completely seperate from darkness. The view of this scene is on eye-level with the girl and the hand, implying equality, which may mean that the option of moving away from darkness is also open to the viewer. The view is also from a distance, but this seems to be purely so that we can see the entire hand, as it is so large in proportion to the girl. As stated before, the lighting is such that we have a sense of dwelling in despair. Even though the hand is reaching down and radiating light, it is still in the midst of darkness.

The second track from the album is called Imperium, which simply translates to Empire. The reason for this is because the song is a historical story about an empire (presumably the Romans) that eventually spans the known world. The song, in essence, is like a song that a bard would sing hundreds of years ago, romanticizing the exploits of an army or warrior. So, in this spirit, the song praises the empire, talking about how it rose from a small group of nations to a grand conquering force, saying that "It grew, on the water as on land" meaning that they mastered both land and sea. The song attributes this dominance to the leader of the empire, stating that "He serves as a vital force" and the eagerness of the army to go forth and conquer "We would see new fields, And reap our reward". The entire song is a song of praise to the dead empire. It should be noted that when the Romans conquered a country, they "civilized" it by putting in structures like aqueducts and standardizing economy. This could be seen as a form of lifting the conquered country up out of darkness, which ties back in to the album cover.

Click for German lyrics.