(((((OPENmind/SATURATEDbrain))))): PAX CECILIA, THE

Friday, 30 May 2014

PAX CECILIA, THE

Band: THE PAX CECILIA

Genres: Punk / Post-Punk / Art-Rock / Post-Metal / Instrumental / Post-Hardcore / Screamo / Experimental
Related artists: N/A.
Country: Rochester, New York USA
Years Active: 2003-2011 (hiatus)
Song: "The Tragedy" and "The Machine"
Album: "Blessed Are The Bonds
Year: 2007
Label(s): Self-released
This post's artist is from the May 2014 Mix. This is track #11 and #26.
You can download the May 2014 Mix#5 right here or get the new June Mix#6 here.
For fans of: From A Second Story Window, Angel Eyes, Black Heart Rebellion, Circle Takes The Square, Funeral Diner, Coma Regalia, Mesa Verde, Pg.99, Isis, Romans, Pianos Become The Teeth, Buried Inside, Regina Spektor and Joanna Newsom aka PROPER Screamo.

THE PAX CECILIA is a two-headed beast. You've got your slow, ambient songs that wouldn't sound terribly out of place on a Sigur Ros record. You've also got your ridiculous fast, screamy post-metal songs that sound like a mash-up of Converge and Circle Takes The Square. The band began in 1999 under a different moniker, changed to THE PAX CECILIA in 2003, stopped touring in 2008, stopped recording in 2011 and are currently on hiatus due to geographical inconsistencies, and not broken up.

The band's first proper album, 'Nouveau' is a much more unbalanced affair than the band's sophomore effort, with the first 4 songs being relatively instrumental with no hardcore, screamo or metal while 3 of the remaining 4 songs venture into much heavier territory. The songs have hints of the cohesive direction the band was moving towards, but generally lack a certain flair that makes the later songs so special. I will make an exception to note here that "England; Theatre Of The Air" is as good as any harder track on the next album. Holy shit that so is so fucking good. Think Mesa Verde meets 'As The Roots Undo'-era Circle Takes The Square. The band told me that this album was influenced heavily by CTTS and Pg.99.

I'll go over my favourite songs from the 'Blessed Are The Bonds' cd that the band sent away for free upon its release 7 years ago. The opener, "The Tragedy" is simply breathtaking. This 10-minute epic sounds like someone truly fleshed out Between The Buried And Me as well as From A Second Story Window's softer material, especially the FASSW track "Ghosts Over Japan". The song rises and falls with excellent clean vocals over piano and violin. Almost immediately following the slow and quiet first track, "The Progress" sounds like a completely different band...Converge if they injected more screamo and less thrash, to be exact. After nearly 2 minutes of seething instrumentals the vocals kick in with pure screams. The absolute inversion of musical styles is something I love as it keeps the listener (aka me) on their (aka my) toes. This track is no exception. The song then moves to a keyboard-laden passage without vocals before bringing the song back around right before the 4-minute mark as the passionately spoken-word vocals are intertwined with the denouement. "The Machine" is one of my favourite heavy tracks by the band. It utilizes extremely quick chord riffing and combines it with an off-time breakdown before catapulting the listener into insanely distorted screaming.

The 4 songs I've put up on youtube will probably be enough to make most people download the discography. Although I find these 4 songs to be vastly superior, the entire thing is certainly worth the download as the tracks are meant to be a movement in the grander sense of each album. I should also mention that the band recently released 4 songs from random sessions online a few weeks ago, which you can find here. They are collectively titled 'Mythos/Fragments' and look like they'll be the first of two 4-song downloads, with the next coming in the summer of 2014. The songs on the first download are here.

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DISCOGRAPHY

Click )==>here<==( to download the band's complete discography in mp3 form.

2004 - Nouveau cdLP

2007 - Blessed Are The Bonds cdLP

2011 - Mythos (compilation of random tracks)

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(2007) THE PAX CECILIA - live video part 1 of 3