Artist The Black Heart Procession

Brad Miller

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The Black Heart Procession

On the new Six, pity party-starter The Black Heart Procession remains proudly, powerfully dolorous. While the San Diego group’s somber musical spelunking won’t get any joints jumping, or brighten anyone’s day with subjects like “Rats,” “Drugs,” and “Suicide,” its bleakness—and candlelit chamber pop charm—remains singularly bewitching. Six also marks the first time BHP has released an album concurrently with the project that spawned it, Three Mile Pilot, and that split personality seems to have resulted in leaders Pall Jenkins and Tobias Nathaniel channeling all of their deepest, darkest feelings here, with Jenkins’ cavernous baritone wending tales of gothic torment, religious portent, and desperate, wee small hours rumination over ominous layers of reverb-laden guitar, piano, strings, and softly insistent percussion.

Updated 10/13/2009