Excerpt (translated from the Italian): “The new album of HC-B, an underground band of exceptional quality, already shown in their previous works, surprises with some audacious deeds and the development of their arrangements…
Here we have a massive hard rock orchestra with some overflowing woodwinds, a sweet trumpet ballad, strings-rich post-folk, noise-rock backed by metronomic drums, and moments approaching the visionary Godspeed You Black Emperor!”

Blow Up #133, June 2009

“Italians and film music: a match made in heaven – the Holy Trinity being Ennio Morricone, Nino Rota and Dario Argento soundtrackers Goblin; however as Catania-based Hidden Shoal signees HC-B indicate, haunting soundscapes can exist separately from the celluloid. Named after famed French photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson, the cinemaphonic quintet have been recreating the atmosphere of murky movie theatres and grainy projections since 1999. Soundcheck For A Missing Movie, their latest LP, finds the band looking for a perfect spaghetti western/Mafia tale to score and instead writing an engrossing collection of elegiac etudes with enough potential to transcend the cinemascope. Opening epic A Dusty Book, City Of Lights gradually unveils all its sweeping-string/stinging-guitar glory over the course of ten minutes – with nary a dull moment between them; Black is as sinister as any Sicilian scene in The Godfather trilogy and the single Hot Afternoon In The Bulls’ Square is all corrida drumbeats and menacing brass drones. The sole vocals-dominated number on the album, the languid Slow Compensation is the calm after Playing With Planes’ eleven-minute crescendo storm. Ending with the post-rock blast of Missing Movie, the record doesn’t so much evoke maestro Morricone’s immortal pieces as creates its own imaginary city of hot sun and high drama, proving along the way there’s more to Sicily than la cosa nostra.”

Rave Magazine

Excerpt: “Think Giardini di Mirò’s the only ‘Italian instrumental rock’ outfit worth listening to? Not if HC-B has anything to say about it, as proven by the Sicilian quintet’s explosive, fifty-five-minute opus Soundcheck for a Missing Movie… What distinguishes HC-B’s sound is the energy and intensity which they bring to its material—even a somber, two-minute interlude such as ‘Dead Horse Walking’ feels on the verge of detonation, and much the same could be said for the dreamy ‘Slow Compensation’ and Red-like ‘Crystal Lane.’ Soundcheck for a Missing Movie may be a studio recording but it exudes the vitality of a well-oiled band attacking its material live. Tailor-made for fans of Giardini di Mirò, Explosions in the Sky, Do Make Say Think, Pacific UV, and bands of similar stripe.”

Textura

Excerpt: “Mostly instrumental, the record has more in common with the likes of Do Make Say Think and Grails than it does with the hoards of quiet-loud merchants. They’re not afraid to lift the pace higher than the usual stately plod, either. Album highlight ‘Hot Afternoon In The Bulls’ Square’ comes in with a military snare drum clatter and a driving bass line redolent of Pink Floyd’s ‘One Of These Days’. With the melody driven by the horns, it’s refreshingly direct… ‘Crystal Lane’ starts all shoegazy, but then ends like Led Zeppelin, with some Bonhamesque tubthumping and some gloriously paleolithic riffing. ‘Missing Movie’ is a fittingly raucous finale… Certainly HC-B have more about them than most in their field. Soundcheck For A Missing Movie isn’t totally consistent, but at its best it’s terrific.”

Music Musings and Miscellany