With her fourth studio album Portrait of My Heart, SPELLLING, also known as Chrystia Cabral, has decided to step confidently into new emotional terrain. Peeling away the layered symbolism and surrealism that once defined her work in favor of something more personal, Cabral invites us into the vast and complex reality that exists within her. Known for crafting worlds from otherworldly textures, Cabral instead turns inward on Portrait of My Heart, exchanging her usual mythic narratives and celestial metaphors for a more grounded, humanist vulnerability. The result is a rich, emotionally saturated record that expands her sonic palette while simultaneously clarifying and centering her voice as an artist.
To fully appreciate Portrait of My Heart, it’s important to first trace the entirety of Cabral’s discography. Her debut album Pantheon of Me introduced us to a DIY experimentalist with a taste for spectral R&B and gothic synth-pop, channeling bedroom-produced mysticism into a haunted tracklist. She refined this sound with her sophomore record Mazy Fly, a critically acclaimed release that pushed further into Afrofuturist storytelling and eerie, analog dreamscapes. Then came The Turning Wheel, her magnum opus of theatrical orchestration and baroque pop grandeur. This record served as a kaleidoscopic concept album about transformation, societal structures, and rebirth. The Turning Wheel flirted with Broadway-style melodrama and chamber pop, setting the stage for what felt like a definitive culmination of her maximalist vision.
But Portrait of My Heart is something almost entirely different. It’s more vulnerable but no less ambitious or at times abrasive, demonstrating a move from operatic allegory to more confessional and heartfelt songwriting. Tracks like “Alibi” utilize 90s alt-rock aesthetics and instrumentation, while “Keep It Alive” pulses with the kind of emotional urgency Cabral previously disguised behind her character-driven songwriting. “Destiny Arrives” is an obvious standout — its soaring chorus and cosmic arrangement channels the spiritual awe of Mazy Fly, but with a new emotional clarity. Cabral’s voice glides with conviction and wonder, turning fate into a kind of gospel. Equally compelling is “Drain,” a slinky, bass-heavy dirge that morphs and winds its way into an earned cathartic release. Its ghostly atmosphere and stark lyrics evoke emotional exhaustion without sacrificing its groove, capturing the ache of disillusionment in a way that feels haunting and hypnotic. Her closing cover of My Bloody Valentine’s “Sometimes” wraps the album with grace by distilling shoegaze melancholia into a heartfelt plea; it encapsulates the record’s emotional transparency. By choosing to cover this song, SPELLLING identifies herself with the progressive and visionary artists that paved the way in the same genre that she’s now exploring and defining.
Collaborators such as Toro y Moi and Turnstile’s Pat McCrory help translate the album’s emotional intensity into genre-blurring arrangements. The fingerprints of SPELLLING’s past remain: otherworldly synths, spectral vocal layering, and theatrical flourishes emerge like ghosts from older records, gently reminding us that Cabral’s surreal sensibility hasn’t vanished, but instead that it has grown and evolved.
Ultimately, Portrait of My Heart doesn’t abandon Carbal’s past; it synthesizes it. Where her previous work explored mythical identities and societal abstractions, this album brings those lessons inward, asking what it means to love, to hurt, and to heal. It’s SPELLLING’s most vulnerable and personal work yet, and thus her most bold and courageous. By unmasking herself, she invites and encourages the listener to do the same.
Favorite tracks: “Portrait of My Heart,” “Keep It Alive,” “Alibi,” “Destiny Arrives,” “Ammunition,” “Mount Analogue,” “Drain,” “Love Ray Eyes,” “Sometimes”
SCORE: 9.0/10
