Spellling & The Mystery School

Since she first began releasing music in 2017, Spelllings work has evolved from loop-based avant-folk to fantasy-inspired darkwave to progressive Baroque pop, with The Turning Wheel earning widespread online acclaim, greatly expanding her fan base. With Spellling & the Mystery School, Chrystia Cabral and her touring band since 2021 rework highlights from her first three albums, reflecting how theyve evolved through years of performance. The selections from her self-issued debut, Pantheon of Me, receive the most noticeable sonic upgrade. That album was a sparse, haunting effort that wrapped Cabrals deeply expressive vocals in layers of lo-fi electronics. On opener "Walk Up to Your House," her voice still echoes like shes singing into a well, but the arrangements are clearer and fleshed out with strings and studio drums. "They Start the Dance" is far more intimate and organic in this incarnation, rather than its icier, more ethereal original version. "Cherry" (previously known as "Choke Cherry Horse") maintains its hypnotic drifting feel, but loses the jarring loop pedal distortion and develops into a more spirited creation befitting Cabrals expanded vocal abilities. 2019s Mazy Fly marked the point when Cabral moved on from skeletal arrangements heavy on vocal repetitions to more pop-informed songwriting. "Under the Sun" is transformed from glossy minimal wave to dramatic disco, with swooping strings and starry synths forming a sort of cosmic alliance, and "Haunted Water" similarly becomes more intense with the addition of busy drumming and guitar arpeggios. "Hard to Please (Reprise)" was already a slinkier, slow jam-like revision of the witchy electronic art-pop single, and as lovely as it sounds here, it doesnt really add anything to the previous recording. Likewise, the material from The Turning Wheel hasnt drastically changed from the recordings released two years prior, though there is a bit of a live-in-studio looseness, even as the performances are more refined. "Boys at School" is still an awe-inspiring epic, and "Revolution" feels much less cluttered, letting the bands interplay shine during the songs avant-disco coda. Spellling & the Mystery School demonstrates how some of Cabrals best songs have taken on lives of their own since they were first written. ~ Paul Simpson