The Philosophy of Velocity is the sophomore full-length studio album by Brazil, released on October 3, 2006, by Immortal Records. Demos for the album were recorded in Markleville, IN, by Brand Smith in 2005. Philip Williams, who had joined as a touring member in early 2005, became a full-time member later that year playing bass. The twelve-track album was recorded in Cassadaga, NY, at Tarbox Studio with Dave Fridmann.

With Philosophy, the band's sound took a notable and controversial turn, leaving behind much of their post-hardcore roots and modern progressive rock elements for a more "vintage" sound. With Fridmann as producer, the polished production for which the band and its genre were known gave way to a much wider and noise-laden sound palette.

Orchestrations remained complex, but were influenced less by contempory artists and more by bands like ELO and Queen. Lyrics and melodies were more closely aligned to older songwriters such as Brian Wilson, David Bowie and the Beatles. The sessions resulted in one unused song called "The Author," which was released in 2019 for the band's reunion performance in Indianapolis, IN, and a "Simlish" version of "Candles Cast Long Shadows" that appears on Sims 2: Pets by EA Games.

Reviews of the album were mixed. Written to be a markedly "literary" record with an underlying concept, most songs were composed as short stories or vignettes, heavily influenced by fantasy pulp novels and weird fiction from the early 1900s. Lyrical themes included existentialism, insanity and death.

Hailed by critics and supported by national tours with Sparta, Minus the Bear, Coheed and Cambria, and mewithoutYou, the album vanished after Immortal Record's collapse in 2007 with its master tapes lost in industry limbo.

In 2025, Brazil recovered the original masters and reissued "The Philosophy of Velocity" on vinyl and streaming platforms through DL;BR.

The Philosophy of Velocity was performed live from 2006 through 2007, with an Indianapolis reunion show in 2019 and a record re-release show in 2025.

Personnel

Jonathon Newby - vocals

Nicholas Newby - keyboards

Aaron Smith - guitar

Eric Johnson - guitar

Philip Williams - bass

James Sefchek - drums

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Lyrics

On Safe-Cracking and Rubella

Instrumental

Crime (And the Antique Solution)

Hey time delay synchronicity is all in disarray from another tear under my duvet antique and smells like chantilly the other day it took me far away when we were young and so risque you said to stay but I disobeyed now I've erased the mistake / Long ago someone that I know took all the torment I could throw how would I know I couldn't let it go without a dose of a-d-o and although it's been a year or so I think I never will outgrow I'm laying low so in reverse I go because she's the one that I owe / I have gone awry trying to defy the laws of time where they apply and so I sigh that I am high and dry it really took me by surprise it caught my eye I had to say good-bye it seems I've lost my paradigm and I could die beucase I don't know why but I forget the name I go by / Is it called a crime if I play with time all the shame it brings it changes everything / I'm fading away

You Never Know

Yesterday morning upon my waking inside my pocket I found a calling card / It said in cursive "Meta-detective" and had a number I didn't recognize / It rang all morning and in the evening I heard an answer it sounded like a sigh / It was a woman on the receiver (she was a breather) I said i'd see her because you never know / She said she'd meet me under the marquee of a theater that was abandoned / She ran up to me and leaned in closely whispering softly, she told me how I would die / She spoke in cipher and coy conundrums her hair was like lightning and smelled like thunder / Ending our rendez-vous, she said "Rappelez-vous?" And with a pirouette, she disappeared and I said "You never know" / I'll let you be my eyes if we fly / I'll let you be my eyes because I'm blind / The rain flies into out mouths while our heads fly into the clouds

The Vapours

My head is floating like a rock in a riverbed / Today, the vapours came and took my mind away like an angel, I look in the mirror and say / My hands are shaking like they're wrapped around a gun / Today, the vapours put a rope around my tongue and now my hands write down on paper what I say / Does anyone ever feel like I do? Does anybody ever feel this way? I never know how to explain it to you I still wonder if it's all inside my head / I can never seem to some the same familiar beating drum

Cameo

There there you are there again / Staring through the screen when the lights are dim / I wonder why you are there / There goes a shadow behind the scene / An ingenue phantom on the screen / I wonder why it is there / Out on the sidewalk I see your grin the truth in your eyes is closing in I wonder why she is there / Oh wait, I saw you again tour gossamer skin I saw your cameo

Candles (Cast Long Shadows)

Hey, they say you died in your sleep from a poison vapour leak in 1917 you were only 23 / The time that I saw you last was in a piece of broken glass when you moved across the room and I smelled your cheap perfume / Shiver in the apartment where I live and the death that you relive is too close to my bed and it replays in my head / You are the ghost in the machine you are the ghost in my routine and I find you quite obscene 'cause the way that you make me fiend / I, I don't know what to do 'cause your body, I see through / But I could not see your face though I saw your breath on the mirror / And there's one thing that you should know that's that I fell for you long ago and everything that I do begins and ends with you / Late, the candles cast long shadows / No matter where you are / Adelaide? There's no one there

Au revoir, Mr Mercury

Mr. Mercury a cast iron steam machine made the morning tea for the Admiral Gabardine / Went out on an errand but came back too late the runabout was idling behind the gate / Mr. Mercury, his dials and his springs set out for Mr. Quick by following the oil slick / "Mr. Mercury, why did they all leave? Could it be I wonder, a strange disease? Because everybody's gone the house is empty and the silence is killing me" / The moon was overheard and the city streets were dead / They heard a soft alarm that was set by Mr. Arm / "Mr. Mercury, why did they all leave? Could they be, I wonder, all overseas? 'Cause everybody's gone the town is empty and the silence is killing me" / "Follow me. I will take you to the admiral. He will tell us what to do" / You can tank Smythe and Tinker for your curious demeanor. (He is a patented marvel) They no longer linger, but he knows he'll be alright / Are you getting existential in your clockwork differential? (He's a patented marvel) / Our serial numbers are etched in ours thumbs send someone who could use a good automaton / We are alone / "Mr. Mercury there's not much use for us three / I'll turn your On switch Off if you'll do the same for me 'cause everybody's gone the world is empty and the silence is killing me.

Captain Mainwaring

Underwater in a submarine he smokes a cigarette and blows the steam / He navigates though the deep blue sea all by his lonesome, no company / Rescued a lady from a sinking ship then let her go on an iceberg tip /

Ferried a family from an island head brought them to cannibals on a beach instead / His eyes are hollow just like his cheeks his faded uniform not washed in weeks / He had a daughter to call his own / Poseidon's water took her long ago / Out the portal late at night a sailor might see a watery light / And if he sees it he'll let it be it's the lonely Captain in his submarine / Mainwaring in his submarine / Mainwaring, where's your queen?

A Year in Heaven

I'm thinking we're shrinking said the lady to her darling but the world is getting bigger and my patience getting thin / I'm guessing it's pressing that we start progressing our ships are not syncing so I would understand / She indiscreetly mutters to herself / Chasing the rabbit was my habit said the addict to the sidewalk but he caught it with his wallet and the tracks upon is skin / And it follows that he swallowed the notion he was Apollo but he lost it exhausted so he pushed the needle in / And in the street he mutters to himself / Forsyth and Zebulon Earhart and Kamorov Capucine and the cats that she left us and all of the passengers on the Sultana were drinking their coffee and smoking havanas / The skyline is my line said the rich man from his airplane but he won't say in his dream state it crashes in the woods / And in his sleep he mutters to himself where do we go from here?

The Remarkable Cholmondley Chute System

Instrumental

Breathe

Breathe in breathe out your contradictions / Breathe in breathe out your words of fiction / Breathe in breathe out, you say, but not on my time / Says I, Good bye to Grace" / Breathe in breathe out your pale addiction / Breathe in breathe out without conviction / Breathe in breathe out, you say, but not on my time / Says I, Goodbye to Grace / Says the look on my face / Breathe in breathe out without permission / Breathe in breathe out your final mission / Breathe in breathe out, you say, but not on my time / We may never be something better / We may be down but we're not afraid / We may never be something better / We may be down but we're not afraid / Your breath is clouding the window

Strange Days

There's a room inside my finger where ghosts of authors linger / There's a little man who whispers in a radio transmitter / There's a lady on a spider with a baby's head beside her / There's a voice inside my earlobe from a place the sidewalks don't go / There's a man with an umbrella who is smoking citronella and he sees fantastic visions of a world outside my prison / There's a fountain full of ashes and a snake beneath the grasses and he's asking everybody what makes them melancholy / My language is patois philosophy is in my boudoir my head's in Constantinople and my body's in a bubble / I'm a Rosicrucian lackey in the ministry of Peculiar Things / I will tell you my secret but only if you keep it / These are strange days, these days are strange / But enough about me, why don't you tell me about your day?

Music and collaborations