Spellling Portrait of My Heart

On Chrystia Cabral's fourth album as SPELLLING, the Bay Area artist transformsher acclaimed avant-pop project into a mirror. Cabral's lyrics for Portrait of MyHeart tackle love, intimacy, anxiety, and alienation, trading the allegorical approachof much of her previous work for something pointed into her human heart. Thealbum's thematic forthrightness is echoed in it's arrangements, making it thesharpest, most direct SPELLLING album to date. From the dark minimalism ofher earliest music to the lavishly orchestrated prog-pop of 2021's The TurningWheel to this newly energetic expression of her creative spirit, Cabral has provedagain and again that SPELLLING can be whatever she needs it to be.The title track, with it's propulsive drum groove and anthemic chorus of "I don'tbelong here," is the most potent embodiment of the album's turn toward emotional directness. Once the main melody emerged, Cabral used the song as a toolto process her anxiety as a performer and opted for a tighter, more rock-orientedcomposition. This transformation mirrors the album's broader shift toward energyand immediacy, driven by the core band of Wyatt Overson (guitar), Patrick Shelley (drums), and Giulio Xavier Cetto (bass), whose collaboration uncovers newcontours of the SPELLLING sound. Cabral still writes and demos in isolation, butpresenting the songs for Portrait of My Heart to her bandmates helped her discovertheir eventual lively, organic forms. So did working with a trio of producers-TheTurning Wheel mixing engineer Drew Vandenberg, SZA collaborator Rob Bisel,and Yves Tumor producer Psymun.Key guest contributions further shape the album. Chaz Bear (Toro y Moi) deliversSPELLLING's first duet on "Mount Analogue," Turnstile guitarist Pat McCroryturns Cabral's original piano demo for "Alibi" into the crunchy, riff-y version thatappears on the record, while Zulu's Braxton Marcellous gives "Drain" it's sludgyheft. These parts aren't just incorporated seamlessly into the album; they feel likean integral part of it's universe.Ultimately, though, Portrait of My Heart is nobody's record but Cabral's. She fearlessly draws the curtain back on parts of herself that she's never includedin SPELLLING before-her feelings of being an outsider, her overly guardednature, the way she can throw herself recklessly into intimate relationshipsand then cool on them just as quickly. "It's very much an open diary of all thosesensations," she says.