Mind-melting overdrive grips the pulse of Satisfaction – the ninth track from Spellling’s Portrait of My Heart – but is still unable to ready us for the full metal breakdown that arrives as the song heads to its conclusion, pinch harmonics et al. This is not the baroque mythos of The Turning Wheel (though the title track does tease somewhat of a renewal amid palm-muted distortion), nor is it the unmitigated ambient sensibility of Pantheon of Me. This is the Oakland singer-songwriter-producer using heavier rock music, not only as a weapon to test the defences of themes such as anxiety and alienation but as the latest transformation in a career of many.
Waking up and choosing violence, maintaining a musical persona one may describe as “chameleonic”; sometimes the cliches are applicable for the best of reasons. Spellling’s fourth album harnesses the beauty of the ultimate left turn, using the unforeseen to entice.
The Turning Wheel was philosophical whether the subject was penguins or bullying, but its sequel would rather seek and destroy, all the while remaining progressive. Be it the cathartic wails that race toward the river beneath Waterfall or Drain sounding a little like Pearl Jam’s Dissident, the album consistently plucks an incredible sense of release from its heavy protests against anguish, which Chrystia Cabral – Spellling’s real name – is most upfront about, relying less on metaphor.
Release washes over the instrumental bridges of Ammunition, its guitar screech attaching to a heaviness otherwise supplied by orchestral backing. Cabral allows for some wordless reflection, a combination of head-banging and meditation.
If one’s enamour with the sources of inspiration behind Portrait of My Heart were due to a potential to happily cry out, Spellling adapts to such source material wonderfully, cradling moods of Dream Theater and Foo Fighters in her arms as she screams in the face of heartbreak on Love Ray Eyes; breeding Evanescence and a sci-fi blowout sequence on Keep It Alive. The album ends with a cover of My Bloody Valentine’s Sometimes, its chief use of feedback for accompaniment is appropriate for both a shoegaze cover and this album.
Synth zaps and classic vocals are conjunct on Mount Analogue, as much a duet as Cabral’s singing with Chaz Bear of Toro y Moir. Even on an album that sticks to a specified genre, the left turns keep coming, continuing to entice as Alibi brandishes a bracing pop metal motif that sounds as though it’s about to go as radio as possible on the chorus before yanking and remembering that ain’t the Spellling way.
But hey, the Spellling rules keep changing; it’s so hard to keep up. The only constant in Chrystia Cabral’s deadly career is her enchanting ability, which “Portrait of My Heart” showcases with the utmost exhilaration.