CexCells

Stay honest to your fans and keep their respect

If you are a rock star and you like playing different music but cannot realize your artistic needs in the borders of your own band, side project may be really helpful. In fact, this is why side projects actually exist. If you want playing something new than do it under another alias - stay honest to your fans and keep their respect. Of course, there are few examples of some well-known bands that used to change their stylistic outfit but it is hard to tell if the overall result made their life better. All these things concern Blaqk Audio – a side project of AFI's Davey Havok and Jade Pugent- in a full measure. Their first album called Сexcells is more than just unpredictable record - a mixture of electronic, Depeche Mode, light industrial and dance music. The album has almost nothing that could remind you about musicians' principal band except, perhaps, only a few hardly distinguishable elements. Nevertheless, despite that fact that this work was something of a novelty for them the album turned out to be a pretty strong attempt.

To a certain degree Сexcells sounds alike AFI

As it is well known AFI were always playing punk, pretty raw and heavy to stand out from the pop punk family but pretty tuneful to attract crowds of devoted listeners. While the band was struggling for their piece of fame their style was experiencing some changes, however, this process was pretty slow. AFI's music was transforming from a spiteful, speedy garage punk into tuneful, mass appeal but heavy gothic punk during seven or eight years. The situation changed greatly when they released their recent album Decemberunderground on which the musicians used samples, elements of electronic and other atypical for punk rock things. It seems like Davey Havok realized that a further development in this direction will change his band beyond recognition and decided that it would be better to satisfy his musical inclinations somewhere else. To a certain degree Сexcells sounds alike AFI's recent album but the character of this likeness is really veiled. All the new features of AFI were raised to the second power and multiplied by Havok's and Pugent's unrestrained interest to the new musical sphere. The resemblance to AFI remains in Havok's vocals and anthem-like type of the songs, everything else sounds completely different.

The majority of the songs sound like potential singles

Musically, the album features all typical elements of electronic music. Up-tempo drum machine beats, pulsing samples, synthesized sounds of live instruments and other things of that kind. However, despite extremely generic image of material, Pugent as an arranger, manages to add some character to the songs. He frequently uses weepy piano melodies and dramatic synths and actually the songs as such sound pretty attractive. The album starts assuming an air of something interesting from the very first seconds of the first track Stiff Kittens. A heavy influence of Depeche Mode cane be felt immediately, the song sounds dark but at the same time frankly poppy. The musicians keep on thickening dark coloring on Between Breaths (an XX Perspective), which has a very specific industrial appeal. But thereafter the songs are represented in a more dance floor look. Snuff On Digital is probably the most typical composition of the album. It features tones of purely electronic elements but keeps sticking to tunefulness and Depeche Mode's atmosphere. On A Friday or Semantic Love are executed in the same vein. Nevertheless, the album includes some heavy songs too. Listen to The Love Letter or Cities By Night – these are slow, guitar-synth driven tracks, which can attract any person who loves music with a prefix "gothic". Overall, Сexcells is a pretty strong album, the overwhelming majority of the songs sound like potential singles, it has some drawbacks of course but they don't spoil your positive impression. The conclusion may be as follows: Blaqk Audio should be treated as a side project exclusively, don't expect something ground shaking, simply take it easy. From this perspective Сexcells looks more than just a good album.