16 Horsepower “Black Soul Choir”

É sempre bom fazer uma retrospectiva à carreira dos norte-americanos 16 Horsepower, que lançaram este ano a colectânea “Yours Truly” pela Glitterhouse Records, que contém um CD com os 12 clássicos que imortalizaram a banda de David Eugene, entre eles está “Black Soul Choir”, “Haw”, “American Wheeze”, “Cinder Alley” e “I Seen What I Saw”, e o segundo CD abrange 13 canções, entre elas encontram-se algumas raridades, B-Sides e demos.

“Influenced by folk’s more whacked out, gloomy, voodoo-visioned forebears, 16 Horsepower … narrate their haunting campfire-punk yarns without a modern-day care in the world. Instead, David Eugene and his melancholia-drenched posse of LA dreamers prefer the dark grandeur that only comes with mournful swathes of countrified guitar, of heavy-hearted violins, pianos and accordions, of lonesome banjo-picking and Ennio Morricone tautness. Add a dash of Dylan-esque roots-philosophy and the result is a forlorn dustbowl saloon bar where Nick Cave woefully sinks bourbons with the Gun Club only moments after a loved one’s funeral parade. … Sometimes, you just have to accept that there’s, ahem, nothing as pure as folk.” (NME on the album Secret South in 2000)

Recordo o vídeo “Black Soul Choir”, single retirado do álbum “Sackloth’n’Ashes” de 1996, e que também está disponível em “Yours Truly”.