Blaqk Audio

Although AFI singer Davey Havok and guitarist Jade Puget have been focusing on songs for his or her digital side project Blaqk Sound since before AFI’s breakthrough album Sing the Sorrow arrived in 2003, it took a couple of years for the music to start to see the light of day. The achievement of their group’s major-label debut avoided both from spending enough time on Blaqk, though Puget still continuing to bring designed noises into AFI’s repertoire, both on Sing the Sorrow and 2006’s Decemberunderground. Finally, in early 2007, Havoc (on vocals) and Puget (on the rest) could actually total what they started, liberating the all-electronic dance and goth-inspired CexCells on Interscope in August of this same year. Merging an equal way of measuring impact from Depeche Setting, New Purchase, and Pet Store Boys, Blaqk Sound resurrected a distinctly nocturnal ’80s audio for the aughts. Between albums, they added to soundtracks for the film Abduction as well as the Batman: Arkham Town gaming. In 2012, the set returned with another ’80s synth pop-inflected recording, Bright Dark Heaven. Four years later on, a continuation of this same audio was melded with darker sonics on Materials, which noticed Blaqk Sound veer within an icier, more extreme direction.