to celebrate the new myspace player, we have uploaded the long-lost song "a denouement" from our 2004 release "nouveau: a theatre of the air"...

oceans and wastelands, familiar imagery to us: the former deep, teeming with life and mystery, the latter barren and exposed. there is a ship, also familiar imagery, the symbol of voyage, the vessel of man made to protect him from those hungry, terrifying waves. it is battered and broken, but those who remain living wish the vast expanse of water away, it is their right to not be threatened by that dark tomb. the water recedes, returning to where it once was delivered from. the depths are exposed, but in excavation, all glories they held have gone, as well. men, unaware, grow to love the infertile hell they have willed. for them, the drama of lifeless death is inescapable. to them, happiness can only be found as scorched skeletons of the men they once were.

-kent

the spanish language webzine feiticeira engaged john, our bassist, in a lengthy interview about the distribution and story elements of blessed are the bonds. enjoy!

feiticeira.

the english version should be halfway down the page.

it is to our honor that "blessed are the bonds" has been nominated for the best post-metal album of 2007 on metalstorm.ee, a european webzine...
if you'd like, you can see us and the other spectacular albums among us here...

until the beginning of march, members of the site can vote for their favorite...
-kent

Sputnik music, a website that has been very good to us, has voted "blessed are the bonds" into its list of the top 50 albums of 2007...
please check it out and support the site here...
-kent

SonicFrontiers.net has included our song 'the Machine' on it's first ever compilation album. There's a bunch of great songs on this from bands like Sigh (The End Records), Irepress (Translation Loss Records) and Souvenir's Young America (Underadar/CrucialBlast).

Go to the site and download the compilation for free:
http://www.sonicfrontiers.net/php/compilation-1.html

- John

if anyone is interested in some more insight into our methods of distribution, our creation mentality, and our motives with blessed are the bonds, i invite you to check out an interview i recently gave with deafsparrow.com

http://www.deafsparrow.com/The-Pax-Cecilia-Interview.htm

we are working on a few other interviews right now, from different members of the band, and we will post them as they become live!
-kent

it seems that the term "pretentious" has been thrown around a lot lately, i've mostly noticed it in relation to us and our songwriting approach, but i've also heard it in relation to a whole slew of admirable, if misunderstood, artists...

the now common usage of the term bothers me... the way that i see it used usually entails accusing some creator of self-indulgent pomposity... that is, in his act of expression, he intentionally, through unconvention, lofty diction, or incomprehensibility, actively elevates himself above the receiver of the work... i've also seen this being described as "artsy" or "avant garde", but basically i think what the critic means to say is that the artist is unnecessarily arrogant...

in my opinion, the vast majority of art that finds itself in the category of being labeled pretentious is not arrogant or masturbatory at all in that sense...

first of all, any time somebody speaks, writes something down, communicates at all they have to think it is worthy of being brought into the world... so it seems to me that anything that is expressed at all, feels itself worthy of being expressed and is thus guilty of some pretense...

art may be the highest form of communication, and then so must be the most potentially and detrimentally guilty of pretense... but it is also capable of expressing the most vast, the most dangerous, the deepest ideas... and so is essentially more valuable than more common forms of communication... an artist who stretches our perceptions of our world, who challenges convention and the norm, who leaves in his work the potentiality for interpretation and universality, he is simultaneously the most guilty of pretense and the most responsible for moving culture forward...

and this returns to the debate about an artist intentionally elevating himself above his viewer... yes, there will be those that only create in order to fulfill a superiority complex, to satiate their insecurities through elitism, but just because an artist and his work is not readily understood or completely grasped does not mean he falls under this category...

nothing great can ever be fully comprehensible, at least not on the first exposure... a truly rewarding work challenges the receiver to examine it and examine themselves, and to find the depth in both... and this is how art, something manmade, connects us to our individual and collective worlds...

it would be truly pretentious for me to suggest that anything we have done as a band reaches such a caliber, but i can defend our own works on the basis that everything we put into them is genuine, in the way that we feel it is all necessary and beneficial to whatever idea or feeling we've personally discovered within our act of expression...

and i certainly dont mean to deter future criticism of our work or any other work... i just found that particular word overused, and seemingly thoughtlessly so... i should also mention that none of the other band members may support or condone anything ive written here, these are just my personal thoughts...

thanks for reading my totally self-indulgent ramble!
-kent

we have replaced the earlier posted versions of tragedy and progress with our final mastered versions... i apologize to those who already added the songs to their profile... these ones will be up for good!
-k

for those of you having trouble accessing the lyrics, enjoy!


***the tragedy

i sing the song of sinking ships
in a soft and sleeping sea.

a song of slow rises and falls,
a song where refrains are only restraints-

some say a tired ocean pulls everything apart,
and others say it's finally coming together.

in this song, the rhythms
are feet on these decks;
children run, and lovers dance

hands that reach for eachother and
into the air for notes make these cymbals ride,
and when they are pulled back to their sides
with nothing but ideas for tomorrow,
those hands make these cymbals crash.

and in this song, fingers on strings
are in search of a truth of some kind
and we live in the light of the notes
that we strike.

and in songs like this one,
they all blend together,
seeking out others like themselves...

and in this song
we find a way to follow all or none,
to accept these ends or defy them-
but those notes hammer on...

and when no one remembers where these
ships were built,
or knows whether they found home,
their legacy lives on in songs like this.

and when you sing this song,
those lovers will dance,
and those truths will be found..
those notes and cymbals,
and oceans and fingers will rise up again,

though now, they fade.
though now, they fade.


***the progress

and those flames devour all!

we fear not the flood, we fear not the drought
we fear not the peak, nor the valley ensuing

we do not fear the song
we only fear its end
we only fear its consummation

when we were young
our mothers looked with our eyes
out and over everything
oh, those wide fields of tall wheat
and, oh, those busy streets

wet with the night,
and bright! with traffic lights
how they mean to inspire
how they mean to tell of a firm stand against time,
to tell the children that their lights can never fade,
and the words we heard our father's speak
were a thread so sweet
it is covered in ants, still strung over our heads, across this land

but now, such strange fates!
our dearest sweetest hope has died,
how lovingly she held us as we slept
how motherly she cupped those tired hands over our waking eyes,
how she has grown so still, pouring softly the tears that we cry.

soon, friends, you most bury her in your chests as i have in mine
and rise, rise, rise, rise
for though the moments press now on our heels and households like the waves,
with a fearful vigil, we have turned to face the coming tides
only to find that such oceans have dried

oh fates, you were so unwise!
if our mothers have taught us anything, it is that there is no shame in a fading light
but instead, a pale worldly beauty
so be tired, good children
be tired, but be strong, in a word: persevere
for the dimmer the light, the longer it shines when we are gone.

it was a difficult process choosing the tracks to display online... all the tracks are just smaller parts of the larger musical and conceptual whole... so none would be proper representations of the full sound or the full idea... we settled on the opening track, "the tragedy", which serves mostly as an overture to the rest of the disc, and "the progress" which is arguably the fucking fastest and heaviest track we have...

an unintended coincidence is that these tracks are perhaps the most vocal-heavy pieces on the disc... take that as you will...
lyrics will eventually be posted along with the tracks, but they are not available for download... if you want to have these tracks for always, just request a free cd by sending your mailing address to cd@paxcecilia.com...

the tragedy features string performances by the canzonetta trio... and the progress has backup vocals by dutch pearce of the apparati and orgone (no, he's not the goofy voice in the second half, that's me)

it would be to our delight if you could let us know what you think of these tracks we have posted, even if it's disappointment... we've been long at work on this album, and it does matter to us how our listeners feel about our evolvement...

thank you all, much love,
kent