Portrait Of My Heart [LP]

On Chrystia Cabral's fourth album as Spellling, the Bay Area artist transforms her acclaimed avant-pop project into a mirror. Cabral's lyrics on "Portrait Of My Heart" deal with love, intimacy, fear and alienation, swapping the allegorical approach of many of her earlier works for a look into her human heart. The album's thematic bluntness is reflected in the arrangements, making it Spellling's sharpest and most direct album to date.

From the somber minimalism of her earliest music to the lushly orchestrated prog-pop of 2021's "The Turning Wheel" to this new energetic expression of her creative spirit, Cabral has proven time and again that Spellling can be whatever she needs it to be.

The title track, with its driving drum groove and anthemic chorus of "I don't belong here", is the strongest embodiment of the album's turn towards emotional immediacy. Once the main melody crystallized, Cabral used the song as a tool to work through her anxieties as a performer, opting for a tighter, rockier composition.

This transformation mirrors the album's overall shift towards energy and immediacy, driven by the core band of Wyatt Overson (guitar), Patrick Shelley (drums) and Giulio Xavier Cetto (bass), whose collaboration reveals new contours of the Spellling sound.

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