It’s perhaps suprising given my constantly developing taste for ever more complex and ponderous music that this album arrived into my life several weeks ago and was filed in the “too damn daunting for where my head is at currently” pile after a single listen. After a several week long odyssey into drone (Earth, Sunn O))), Boris) this suddenly didn’t seem so intimidating any more, so I gave it another whirl.

Apparently lumped into the post-hardcore bucket with the likes of *shels (who also don’t belong there) The Pax Cecilia wafts evanescent over the sorry arse of any dreary musical subgenre they damn well please. Labelling them anything containing the epithet ‘core’ seems painfully beside the point. These slow building arrangements melt effortlessly from from folk to caustic hardcore to sparse drone to proggish melodic interludes. Anyone sampling opening track The Tragedy would be forgiven for thinking that this isn’t even rock music. These lengthy tracks are peppered with baroque strings, soaring guitars and subtle melodic vocals which occasionally erupt into a harrowing scream.

The sheer array of ideas and undisguised talent on display here is astonishing. That this band have done little to bother the popular consciousness is both a testament to the bravery of this album and a self fulfilling prophecy – The Pax Cecilia may well have “too damn difficult for their own good” chiselled on their tombstone, something that wouldn’t be said for the aforementioned Enio Morriconeists *shels who have the potential to really break through.

This album is made to be loved and cherished and played alone on rainy days (perhaps on long train journeys like the one from which this article is being written). This is not a happy album, and not one that you will truly grok in few listens, but like all truly exceptional albums it’s worth the effort. What’s more astonishing is that an album of this quality is being given away free. Yes, you heard me right, if you want to grace your world with this work of loveliness then it can be downloaded in its entirety for free here. It’s the gift that keeps on giving.

Tags: hardcore, metal, Post Rock, post-hardcore

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 15th, 2009 at 7:42 pm and is filed under Album, Reviews, Unsigned. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.