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California always conjures up images of fast-paced and glamorous scenarios: the craziness of Las Vegas, the Hollywood hill, beaches full of surfers and attractive women, the villas of the ultra-wealthy. Music too seems unable to free itself from this dreamlike atmosphere, with west coast rappers filling our eyes with half-naked women, limousines, mega-parties... but amidst this fair of excess, there is a group that seems not to live this “California dream”. They are the Black Heart Procession, San Diego (California, of course).
The sound of the Black Heart Procession's "2" immediately strikes with its gloominess: dark, slow, evocative ballads. They could be called Calexico in a depressive crisis, but they are so much more.
Their oppressive sound, at times repetitive to the point of becoming hypnotic, is like a sudden dark cloud capable of obscuring the sun. Thus, country rhythms become muddy, ballads turn into requiems, folk atmospheres become harrowing, and these are the sounds of “2”. All dark? Not quite, just a couple of tracks seem to rise from these funeral atmospheres, yet they do not break the strongly noir atmosphere of the entire work. Pall Jenkins’ voice, the group’s singer, is always splendid, dark, melancholic, and soulful. Accompanying him is the keyboard of Tobias Nathaniel, who, along with the singer, represents the “heart” of the group.
In conclusion, our Black Heart Procession have succeeded in extracting the "Night" part from the Californian sun (Claudio Fabretti calls them the Californian nocturne) by playing dark (and splendid) black ballads.
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By Ashbringer83
They look like a dark ink stain sliding on a marble surface.
The piano plays its heavy tolls, the notes are the steps of the marchers, the dark tide parades before my eyes and fades into the horizon.
