Blaqk Audio - Cexcells, the Latest from AFI's Davey Havok and Jade Puget

Punk veterans Davey Havok and Jade Puget of Ukiah, California-based AFI have been working on a side project intermittently for the last four years, since completion of AFI's sixth studio album, the platinum selling Sing the Sorrow. Their efforts have finally come to fruition with the August 14th release of Cexcells, the debut album from blaqk audio, available from Interscope Records.

blaqk audio can best be described as electronic goth rock. Influences from bands such as Depeche Mode, the Cure (both influences which are always present in Havok's lyrics), the Faint, Cursive and even the Postal Service, can be heard in Cexcells twelve dark tracks. Keyboards and synthesizers are not new to Havok and Puget, as Puget has been credited with "programming and keyboards" in the liner notes of both AFI's last two albums, Sing the Sorrow and Decemberunderground.

Fans of AFI will be glad to know that the voice behind blaqk audio is still Havok's, with Puget faithfully backing him, having foregone his guitar for a keyboard and synthesizer. The voice of a good friend to all four members of AFI, Nick 13 of Tiger Army fame, can also be heard on two tracks on the album, "Where Would You Like Them Left?" and "On a Friday."

On their MySpace.com profile, the band describes themselves as "Two boys in love with synthesizers and software." Havok's lyrics, which, in this writer's opinion, exemplify some of the most thought-provoking and understated poetry written in recent years, are just as haunting in blaqk audio's tracks has it has been on AFI's last four albums. "Wait for a heart that never lies/not this time/watch those explosions in the sky," is an example of such lyrics from the track "Cities of Night."

The first single from the album "Stiff Kittens" (which lyrically has nothing at all to do with anything feline) tells the story of love that was meant to be eternal but has met its demise far before "'forever' yet returned again." The theme of immortality and an indescribable spiritualism that had been prevalent in the stories of AFI's last two albums is also established in much of Cexcells.

One thing missing that AFI fans have come to expect from Havok's mind is the story within a story concept fueling his recent lyrics. Both Sing the Sorrow and Decemberunderground were concept albums, driving fans to work through a puzzle to arrange track in their "correct" order to find the story behind it all. Also, both albums were prefaced with an interactive scavenger hunt, of sorts, which had fans calling random numbers on their cell phones and visiting the merchandise vendors of other bands to obtain clues. These elements of intrigue were not included in the creation of blaqk audio or Cexcells but their absence should not be detrimental to the success of this and subsequent albums.

If you have a chance to see blaqk audio as they embark on a tour to support Cexcells, and you have any interest in electronica, I advise you take the opportunity. You shant be disappointed.