The Turning Wheel - Spellling: Review
Spellling
is the progressive pop and art pop project of singer and songwriter Tia Cabral. She first turned heads with her independently released debut album in 2017 before signing to Sacred Bones records and wowing critics with her 2019 follow-up. Two years later she is back for an even grander third record on the back of three similarly acclaimed singles.
Review By Lav:
This took me a while, my bad. Not only did this record come out on a busy week but there is also quite a lot to go over. I enjoyed the last Spellling record and I had a feeling I was going to enjoy this one even more after hearing the singles and seeing some pretty positive reception for the record, one reviewer in particular. And while I wish I had gotten my thoughts on the project out before Melon's review I still want to deliver. While I don't think this record is perfect I do like it quite a bit. If you are somehow interested in this kind of sound and haven't had the chance to indulge Spellling yet, do yourself a favor and let her take you somewhere completely magical on The Turning Wheel.
This record gets going with the highlights right out of the gate. Little Deer kicks off the project with a wonderful, glittery and wistful instrumental intro that leads into Tia's childlike vocals. She adds some wonderful naturalistic folk storytelling to the song which comes paired with a horn arrangement that feels like such a lovely addition to the songs narrative. It really does sound like a fairy tale brought to life in an absolutely beautiful way. Always is next and it gets going with a slightly stark and totally gripping emotional piano ballad. But as the instrumentation slowly builds higher and higher it gets into a soft and distant but unmistakably 80's inspired hook. Surprisingly the contrast goes over really well almost entirely due to the steady and brilliant songwriting used to bridge the gap between the songs start and first chorus. Despite all the business going on in the track progression it has a beautiful hook that I find to be just irresistible alongside Tia's singing.
The highlights pick up later on with Awaken. This song has the heaviest Joanna Newsom vibes of the bunch both vocally and with the explosive array of backing instrumentation which seems to rise and fall in direct relation with the lyrics being sung. I would describe this song, and many of the others on the record as otherworldly and almost cinematic. While this track is light on catchy refrains instrumentally speaking it is an absolute tour de force and one of the records most impressive achievements in immersion. Emperor With An Egg uses a tense string arrangement to tell a tense and winding story about its titular character. Across just 3 minutes the track gets into quite a bit of both narrative detail and instrumental virtuosity highlighted by a long but triumphant string passage in the second half that really grabs me. Next up is Legacy, an impressive blend of natural and synthetic aesthetics into what feels like a weird warbled manipulated folk tune. As circular and strange as the instrumentation can be at various points every time Tia's voice returns with calls of "Into the daylight" it all feels very harmonious and natural. I wish I could describe it better but I think you really have to hear it for yourself to know what I mean.
Queen Of Wands might be my favorite track on the back half of the record with its surreal, alien synths and glistening tones that feel like a Disney movie re-imagined by John Waters. The marching percussion of the song keeps it sternly pushing through its progression but all of the off kilter synths sounds and vocals surrounding it are allowed to run free wandering the mix and the realm of reality. Revolution definitely should have been the finale of the record as it builds from a quiet piano led start to something truly worthy of the name Revolution. Tia's vocals are really the star of the show as some of my favorite refrains on the entire record are on this track. It's not afraid to return to the quietness of the introduction but once the drums kick in and everything really starts going off it's hard to even remember what the song originally sounded like.
Sweet Talk is the closing track Revolution and it stands out from a lot of the rest of the record. It has a relative simplicity even though it's far from feeling like a by the numbers pop song, most of its surrealism comes from instrumental choices rather than any grand crescendo or fairy tale lyricism. I do think the record should have ended on a more triumphant moment but I find it hard to complain about the song in its current state.
Magic Act is another interesting moment that I've gone back and forth on. It gets off to a weird start with with steady ALMOST trip hop like percussion but it pairs this with what I think might be a literal banjo or something made to sound like one. It doesn't get any easier to swallow once the vocals emerge and methodically creep through refrains with an unsettling and constantly shifting vocal demeanor. The back end of the track is completely taken over by Tia's steady chanting and then a wailing electric guitar solo that somehow feels like it belongs. It has it's ups and downs but the fact that it actually feels like a coherent song is truly worthy of the name Magic Act. The inverse of this is definitely my least favorite track on the record The Future. It's a spacey folk cut with some alien sounding instrumentation which is a bit of a strange combo. It gets even stranger when Tia starts singing like a 90's R&B singer over the track which is something I've heard her channel before but I'm not sure this track is the place. There are pieces that work together but the song is far from seamless.
The title track is a wintery folk tune with a chorus of backing vocals that add a chilling depth to everything Tia sings. The bouncy piano feels like something you'd hear Joanna Newsom over and the driving indie flavored instrumentation behind it is very Fiona Apple. It is probably the least instantaneous of all the songs here compositionally but it certainly delivers pretty sounds. Boys At School is the records longest track and a 7 and a half minute centerpiece with some of the most biographical and practical lyrical themes on the entire album. It initially shoots for something quite eerie with creeping pianos and vocal melodies flying in and out of the track in ghostly fashion. The songs runtime passes by with an absolute breeze given how much it sways back and forth between pleasant refrains. While the songs runtime breezes by it gets predictable on the back half. I can't help but wonder given how much importance is clearly put on the track with its length and placement in the tracklist if I shouldn't be blown away by it, instead of just mixed.
When you get a high profile perfect score, perfection is the expectation. While I do love this record I think it is almost impossible, certainly rare, to shoot for something so instrumentally ambitious and nail it every single time for an hour of music. There are certainly tracks here I didn't love, even if there are really only a pair of low points. But focusing on those moments would be irresponsible tunnel vision since they are absolutely dwarfed by all of the amazing moments of surreal versatility and magnificent thematic direction. Across this hour of music you are going to experience a LOT of different instruments, sounds, styles and stories. The ability to collect these various influences into one sound is impressive enough, but to do so much of it so well is another achievement altogether. The Turning Wheel is a magnificent progressive pop outing with elements of indie, folk and baroque that can be hard to digest at first but is very, very worth any attentive listeners time. 8.5/10
I like this album cover and it's use of high contrast black and white. It's a very confusing and chaotic image and I think the color lends itself to that a lot. I'm really into the composition and how even thought it's a simple subject my eye keeps wandering throughout it. The text is placed very well but it's hard to make out on smaller screens and doesn't work well for digital viewing. Overall this cover is really good! 8/10
