BLESSED ARE THE BONDS

I feel really bad giving the album three stars, but I have good reasons. The few of you who know me good enough, know that I am not a song person, yeah, a song can be great, but if the song doesnt fit with the album, it just throws everything off balance. As for the Pax cecilia's blessed are the bonds, all the songs are great, but they're grouped, and I get an overwhelming sense of unevenness in the album, which leads to a lack of satisfaction for me. This album spans from ambient, to classical jams, to black metal, and then to post metal, so I can understand why putting the songs all in the right place would be quite the challenge, but the fact is, they didn't even try. It seems they just clumped the different genres of music they touched on together, without any diversity in between. Here's how the album goes:

Classically piano driven- The first two songs of this album start with piano and vocals, then climax with other classical instruments jumping in, then finally some drums, and bass will peak it, while the vocals steadily become more driven, and aggressive. These songs are beautiful, and incredibly intense, leaving you blown away at the end. The second song introduces the distorted electric guitars in true post rock fashion to give the songs that edge, and in the first song, the vocals do eventually build into a scream, showing that this will indeed be a metal album

Hardcore/black metal- The next two songs are primarily electric, throwing the classical instruments in the snow as if they never existed. Harsh vocals, and desperate crying chants set the tone as a modern hardcore song, but the precise yet muddy sounding guitars give more of a black metal feel. The first song is more hardcore sounding, and the second song could almost pass as a tech metal song, both are pretty good, but this is, of course, where I go what the hell is going on? All of the sudden we've taken a ninety degree turn towards extremely dark metal, and it caught me off guard, and I'm not very sure that I like it.

Ambient- The next song, The wasteland, is almost completely ambient, which otherwise compliments the intensity of the song before it. Haunting voices set the tone, while every once in awhile a bleak piano chord will shoot from no where. Not to be a super pessimist or anything, but doesnt this seem like the end of GY!BE storm?

Post metal- The next two tracks are almost completely instrumental, and are probably my favorite on the album, especially the second one, The Tree. Angular down stroke guitars, with a slightly distorted tone automatically have you thinking post metal, but there is little doubt left when the classical instruments come back, and the epic climaxes begin. Both songs are great and leave you wanting more, but the strange album has to end at some point.

Classical guitar- The last song, the hymn, is almost too typical to end the album with. A Steve Howe like classical guitar riff (except darker) is being softly plaid while some eerie vocals are being sung, but only for awhile, then the riff keeps going, and going, and going. The persistence of the guitar is actually kind of nice, and it's a breather from the previous songs, but it's really not that impressive, and towards the end starts getting a little sloppy. I wont say the album ends on a bad note, but it doesnt end on an incredibly good one.

Overall I don't think there's a single song I don't like, all of them are well done, and keep you're attention, and for a brand new band to get away with that in a twelve minute long song, it impressive. Like I say with a lot of new coming post metal bands (and there's a LOT), I expect a lot of great things, and think that this one will go pretty far, they just need to learn how to structure an album, or at least give the impression that they tried. Anyone with ears know to put a really slow ambient song after a round of heavy ones, and to end an album with a memorable acoustic.

3 stars.