City Newspaper Archives - 9/2007
Black Audio "CexCells"
Interscope Records
Published by Todd Rezsnyak on Sep 12, 2007
Blaqk Audio is a side project made up of AFI members Jade Puget and Davey Havok. They discovered their mutual love of '80s synth-pop and dance and decided to cut an album paying homage to those influences. "CexCells" is the result, and it is excellent. From opener "Stiff Kittens" (a pulsing, danceable rock track) to "Snuff on Digital" (a straight-up dance song), to "Again, Again and Again," Blaqk Audio takes the largely dismissed electronica genre and gives it some credibility beyond the dance floor. But the disc isn't all fast-paced dance numbers. "Bitter for Sweet" and "The Fear of Being Found" are both darker ballads, while the more uptempo "Semiotic Love" isn't really made for dancing. You won't listen to this disc multiple times because of the easy dance grooves or danceable beats; you'll listen to it again because it's damned good.
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