Blaqk Audio

CexCells

Blaqk Audio - CexCells

08/14/2007 | Interscope Records 

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All Music Guide Review

Blaqk Audio may be a pleasant distraction for AFI's Davey Havok and Jade Puget -- most side projects are -- but given the depth of Cexcells' tracks it sounds like a little more. And if the duo is swayed by sales -- the record is keeping pace with regular AFI albums -- it could head that way. Working from the dark electronic tones set free on AFI's most recent records, Decemberunderground included, Havok and Puget fully indulge their inner eyeliner-wearing '80s club kids here: "Stiff Kittens" and "Where Would You Like Them Left?" recall Depeche Mode at their most disturbing, while "Wake Up" and "The Fear of Being Found" tread more quietly but with no less determination. A couple of goth-tinged dance tracks, "On a Friday" and "Snuff on Digital," also deliver an authentically synthy experience, which may sound impossible but isn't. Havok and Puget borrow from their forebears but inflate these tracks with their own odd brilliance (and flourishes, and beats). Fans of AFI, and anybody who never heard a blackish blast of modern electronic music they didn't like, ought to investigate Cexcells. ~ Tammy La Gorce, All Music Guide

CexCells Track Listing

CexCells Notes

BLAQK AUDIO, the electronic side project of AFI’s Davey Havok and Jade Puget, will finally see the light of day August 7th in the form of the debut album CexCells.

Recorded by the band in between AFI’s extensive touring for DECEMBERUNDERGROUD and mixed by Dave Bascombe (Depeche Mode, Tears for Fears, Placebo), CexCells expands upon and fully indulges the dark electronic textures and influences increasingly prevalent in AFI’s recent work. The results range from evocation of prima era Depeche Mode and early Ministry (“Stiff Kittens,” “Bitter for Sweet,” “Where Would You Like Them Left?”) to four on the floor club-friendly fare (“On a Friday,” “Snuff on Digital”) to vulnerable balladry (“Wake Up,” “The Fear”).

The common thread running through all of BLAQK AUDIO’s material-Havok’s signature dark vocal and lyrical stylings combined with Puget’s epic, emotional arrangements -will be instantly identifiable to AFI fans, despite the synthetic washes, keyboard flourishes and electronic beats supplanting the traditional guitar /bass/drum AFI frame work.

Credits of CexCells

  • Jade Puget
  • Keyboards, Producer, Group Member, Programming


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