Spellling – Portrait of My Heart Review

Spellling not only has their grasp firm on a brilliant sound but has sent the Word processor into a fit. Swapping art-pop for alternative rock, Spellling finds new life on Portrait of My Heart. Its openness, from title to context, is staggering. Warmth is a hard feeling to capture, and in truth, it is dependent on how you feel towards an artist and how their words make you feel. It is about the relationship between the two. Sometimes you hit it off, other times the frigid nature is not your fault or the artists’ fault, just a lack of overlap in experience. But Portrait of My Heart has neither. It has such a confidence, a real thrill, given the constant need for an artist to explore themselves for an audience. Spellling do it for themselves; they are their reason for creating, and it shows on Portrait of My Heart, a wonderful achievement.  

From moments of self-doubt, the sense of not belonging on the title track to the gorgeous string section on the follow-up Keep It Alive, Spellling provides as complete a project as you can hope for. Rising optimism heard in the instrumentals is countered by the raging anxieties and the ever-present want for more in the lyrical spills. There are soft notions of art-rock, of radio-friendly spots of instrumental lightness. It is a guise to hide the darker remit heard on Portrait of My Heart, those moments where the music fades and slows like the crackling record in some budget horror film. Scene setting is what Spellling does best. Through this, Spellling sounds like an artist uncomfortable sitting still. There are moments of love, occasions of fear, and that is just in the first four songs. Always experimenting, shifting the image and narrative as best she can through the likes of Alibi and Waterfall, the point of Portrait of My Heart is to do as its title suggests. Paint a picture of an emotive, evocative experience. Portrait of My Heart is a roaring success.  

Portrait of My Heart has a tremendous coolness to it. It runs through the whole album and is the driving force of those constant changes. An incredible voice, a confident and impressive commitment to the instrumental choices from track to track, it makes this Spellling album a truly special occasion. Destiny Arrives and Ammunition feel like flickers of nostalgia for a moment never experienced, a memory by association. Blisteringly cool guitar work backs this feeling, as complete a sound as it gets. Portrait of My Heart goes a long way in convincing of Spellling as an artist who can do anything. A James Bond song, a flourishing art-rock album, even a straight-shooting singer-songwriter style would benefit from their vocal charm. It is the blend of brilliance which few are capable of.  

An assured powerhouse of an album, not least because of its conviction to exploring new sounds, new flavours of experience. Spellling shifts gear from song to song but keeps steady with these introspective messages of self-hate and the battle of keeping yourself interested in your own success. Portrait of My Heart depends on the honesty not just of Spellling vocalist Chrystia Cabral but on the instrumental tensions put together by a tightly knit band. They do well to understand anxieties which play their part in the creative process. This is not an exorcism of doubt, there is no such tone or example. What Portrait of My Heart is, is honesty in the face of self-doubt, of throwing yourself at passion irrespective of the result. Listeners are lucky this complete dedication to a new, rock-oriented sound is also one of the best releases of the year, there is no doubt about it.