The Black Heart Procession
The Spell
Release Date: May 9, 2006
Genre(s): Indie, Rock
Record label: Touch & Go
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Album Review: The Spell by The Black Heart Procession
Fantastic, Based on 2 Critics
Based on rating 9/10
San Diego's Black Heart Procession traffics in spectral, timeless music; it could be the audio backdrop for Edgar Allen Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart," the score to a Fritz Lang silent film, or the soundtrack to some post-apocalyptic landscape. Since their debut, 1, in 1998, Black Heart has been steadily filling out their sound, which seemed initially constructed of nothing more than ghostly synth washes, reductive basslines, saw moans, keyboards, and singer Pall A. Jenkins' yearning vocals (their second record, 1999's 2, was almost percussion free).
Opinion: Fantastic
Rock bands tend to suffer from a simple yet glaring problem these days: they sound like robots. Try as they might to generate authentic feelings, you often get the feeling they don’t really feel anything. This sad state of affairs is why it's so marvelous to hear the new album from Pall Jenkins and The Black Heart Procession. The Spell is just that: a magical collection of songs where the lyrics, instruments and voice somehow blend perfectly, matching each other moment to moment to tell the same story, set the same mood.
'The Spell'
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