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The WireMay 6, 2025Chrystia Cabral follows up her 2021 prog meets chamber pop album The Turning Wheel with an unexpected but delightful mash-up of late 1990s radio sounds. [Jun 2025, p.60]
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Apr 8, 2025What lets the record dive into her usual realm of staggering emotional depth is, again, her emotive core relentlessly shooting out UV rays of hesitant optimism.
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Mar 28, 2025Portrait of My Heart channels and exudes a wild assortment of sonic influences – an approach which results in the most honest and entrancing SPELLLING record to date.art
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Mar 28, 2025Portrait of My Heart is Spellling's most accessible work, but it's still unconventional and unpredictable, reflecting her uniquely magical vision.
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Mar 28, 2025In an album full of surprises, though, it’s the last track that will catch most listeners unawares: a cover of My Bloody Valentine’s ‘Sometimes’. The shoegaze original buried its words underneath abundant layers of guitars, but from SPELLLING, lines like “You can’t hide from the way I feel” resound with a limitless echo.
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Jun 26, 2025With a little more polishing, Portrait of My Heart would be an immediate, refreshing entry into the hard rock canon. As it stands, it is “just” a very good, blistering effort—another exhilarating development in SPELLLING’s metamorphosis.
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Apr 1, 2025The hooks on “Alibi” and “Keep It Alive” hit with scream-along jollity, even if Cabral’s punk turn means we get less of the fairytale quality that made her earlier work bewitching—and even if the drums sound curiously flimsy at times, crushed underfoot
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Apr 2, 2025This album cooks with gas until it burns out. SPELLLING’s rock album thrills, but Cabral’s spell isn’t quite as entrancing as it was. Familiarity kills the magic—that is, until she transforms again.
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Record CollectorMar 28, 2025Certain tracks are closer to the power ballad moments of Skunk Anansie. Spellling's vocal skills remain impressive as ever. [Apr 2025, p.103]
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Mar 28, 2025It doesn’t really coalesce into a total success, despite some unquestionably fun moments, clear skill and grand ambition.