Warthur The Pax Cecilia's Blessed are the Bonds is one of those albums which sits right on the borderline between post-rock and post-metal, with moments of crushing, screaming fury and gentle, acoustic, almost folky sections co-existing within the band's compositions. A self-released piece which exists solely out of the performer's love of the music - they give it away for free on their website - it's actually extremely well produced, and you really wouldn't know it was recorded and produced entirely on the band's own resources. The fact that such an excellent and wonderful sound can be produced on people's own resources thanks to today's recording technologies is surely reason to have hope for the future - and what better soundtrack for that future than the Pax Cecilia?

Any Colour You Like Having downloaded this album on the advice of another member, I was not sure what to expect, I especially did not expect piano driven post rock with clean and screamed vocals. But hey... The Pax Cecilia have produced a decent album here, full of classical overtones, post metal edges and despair. I love the fact that each song has a different timbre and focus, it never really feels like typical post rock - and that is something to laud in a genre full of GY!BE clones.

Highlights include the beautiful piano melodies of The Tragedy, and the amped up metal riffs of The Water Song and The Tree. The vocal content is minimal, but is split between clean and screamed vocals, unfortunately, the screamed vocals aren't really my thing, and kill some of the atmosphere that the soundscapes create. Fortunately they don't last too long. The other thing that annoys me somewhat is that the latter half of the album seems to drift too much for my liking. The Water Song is very much an ambient piece, but it simply does not build up emotion in a way that would make it more memorable. It is almost as if the music loses some of its direction. Maybe that was the purpose, but I can't help but feel that the album just meanders too much. A little more clarity and purpose would be needed to help maintain interest throughout.

Having said this, there are several moments of beauty in Blessed Are The Bonds, and I really enjoy the fact that The Pax Cecilia had the vision to create such and ambitious album. There is a tangible aura of despair in the vocals and lyrics, and of course, the lovely classical guitar closer The Hymn caps the release off in a positive fashion. I can't be too disappointed with this album, it was free after all; therefore all the more respect must be given to the band for allowing their work to become readily available. So please, if you can donate to the band, and ensure they can keep making more ambitious music.

Sleeper When bands release their work for free, you cant help but wonder if you're only going to get a series of cheaply recorded demos that are going to sound horrible, regardless of how good the band are. However, the moment this album landed on my doorstep I had the distinct feeling that wasn't going to be a problem as the initial impression comes from the packaging. Even the cardboard postal packaging had the bands unique artwork adorning it and the album itself, a proper glass-pressed CD and not a CD-r, came in a wonderfully designed digi-pack (sadly the album is nolonger available in physical format, you have to download it off the bands website now). A good start then, and I hadn't even put it in the CD player. From the first listen this is clearly a well composed album with a beautiful piano melody taking the lead and facilitating an impressive build up, primarily of strings and drums with the guitars kept to the background. Clearly this is not your average post-metal album with instrumentation seemingly focused on piano and strings for a few songs, metal on a few more, an electronic soundscape that perfectly encapsulates the title The Wasteland and finally an ability to mix several of these almost disparate elements together. This distinctive mix of diverse sounds and there subsequent mixing is definitely one of the two biggest strengths of this album. the other is a deft touch with building the songs here, so that nothing is ever over or under done and that tension is built up and released perfectly.

Sitting here writing this now, 3 years on from the release of this impressive album, its clear to me that this doesn't just stand out in a year of below average album releases but its one of the best releases of the decade. The songs on here don't just stand out as indavidual pieces of brilliance, but each track flows from one to the next in such a way that the transition from the piano/drums/strings dominated opening pieces of The Tragedy and The Tomb Song to the more heavy metal of The Progress and The Machine, and so on, is so natural that the album is very organic in its feel and works best as one cohesive piece of art. In effect this creates an album where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts and is definitely at its best when listened to in its entirety. Its shocking that an album of this quality can be made and yet remain so obscure, and more so that the band is willing to give it away for free and survive on donations. My only question is for this masterpiece, is where do they go next, because this is one hard act to follow.