Blaqk Audio- ‘Black Bright Heaven’ (24/09/2012- Superball Music/Big Death)

     Ever wondered what the Pet Shop Boys and Patrick Wolf would sound like together? Well Blaqk Audio are the answer. The band’s origins lie primarily in electronic dance music, inspired by the likes of Depeche Mode. Blaqk Audio’s line up consists of Davey Havok and Jade Puget (current members of AFI),who never considered the band as a side project, and pride themselves on the music they having been creating since last September.

    ‘Black Bright Heaven’ is perceived by the band as an expansion of their debut ‘Cex Cells’. But fundamentally, the album is repetitive and a little limp considering if is dance music. There seems to be very little emotion or sentiment thrown into the interesting mixes in ‘Cold War’ or ‘Fade to White’. However, the use of vocals in ‘Faith Healer’ really steps up and is more captivating, along with a simpler song structure.

Artwork

    Blaqk Audio make use of their inspriations throughout their work, and the pop and electronic blends fit together well in tracks like ‘Deconstructing God’. Although the vocal tones are quite Rock-based, the Dance style elements are similar to some of Radiohead’s work. However, ‘Everybody’s Friends’ is almost identical to the beats found in the biggest clubbing songs around.

   At times it seems a shame Blaqk Audio want to tamper with decent vocals by adding cyclic components and excessive editing techniques. Lyrically, the album lacks any kind of strong theme or storyline, aside from sex and relationships in general, which makes it difficult to engage with. The song structures of some tracks are also hard to follow. Blaqk Audio need to pinpoint what type of electronic dance band they are aiming to be, as some of the Dance style sounds are quite strong and swift, whereas some are unhurried.

   The synthesised parts of ‘Bliss’ and ‘Bon Voyeurs’ pick up the pace somewhat, but it is clear that this Electronic-Rock album was not written to specifically appeal to fans of AFI. ‘Say Red’ is so hasty that it reflects the idea that Puget and Havok are getting their love for electronic music of their chests without actually creating anything spectacular. However, the harmonies and dance elements work very well together and bonus track ‘Lit Ships’ provides a beautiful piano led finish.

Blaqk Audio

    Blaqk Audio is essentially a secondary project for two members of a successful Rock band, and appears to be unpolished, under-produced and lacking in emotion severely. The best song the album has to offer is the bonus track which is made up of piano, vocals and gentle backbeats.

1/5