The Black Heart Procession
Six (Temporary Residence)

When San Diego’s legendary Three Mile Pilot went on a sudden hiatus in early 1998, its members split into two new bands. One, Pinback, became a beloved complex pop band, the other, The Black Heart Procession, has become one of underground music’s darkest cult phenomenon. Over ten years and five albums, The Black Heart Procession has defined a truly unique sound that is unmistakable, instantly recognizable, and increasingly influential.

Following the tour in support of their previous album, The Spell, several of the group’s members left to focus on their other bands full-time -- drummer Joe Plummer left to work with Modest Mouse, and guitarist Jimmy LaValle with The Album Leaf. This left founding members Pall Jenkins and Tobias Nathaniel at the helm, feeling more creatively free and inspired than ever. Rather than coral a new band, they chose to write, perform and record Six as a duo (with a little help from a few friends on select few tracks). The result is their strongest album in a decade.

More than just a return to numerical album titles, Six is The Black Heart Procession’s first album to be written and recorded simultaneously with a new Three Mile Pilot album. As both bands now coexist for the first time ever, Jenkins and Nathaniel have steered The Black Heart Procession into a darker, more adventurous direction, with an increased focus on rhythm and a wildly eclectic instrumental palette.

Produced and recorded by the band over the past couple years, Six is without a doubt the group’s most emotionally resonant album since Three. Brimming with pitch-black ballads of discarded loves and forgotten souls, the album paints a bleak yet strangely comforting portrait of heartbreak, self-destruction and religious allegory over some of their most inspired songs to date, drawing a clear line from here to soul-stirring visionaries such as Leonard Cohen, Johnny Cash and Tom Waits.

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