Spell Idealizes the Past on New Single “Exquisite Corpse”
- Jason Hesley
- 6 minutes ago
- 2 min read
“Music is magic, and Spell is a spell. Fundamentally, it is a forum to make our dreams come true” – Spell vocalist/guitarist/bassist Cam Mesmer
Vancouver-based metal band, Spell, today releases its new LP, ‘Wretched Heart‘, via Bad Omen Records. A shadow-drenched journey through desperation and defiance, ‘Wretched Heart‘ sees Spell transform heavy metal into something urgent and human – gothic, cinematic, and hypnotic. Spell’s strongest record to date, ‘Wretched Heart‘ is the follow-up to the band’s 2022 LP, ‘Tragic Magic‘, an album hailed as a celebration of “the mystique and darkness within hard rock and heavy metal“.
Purchase/stream ‘Wretched Heart‘ at this location.
In celebration, Spell has unveiled a beguiling video for its new song, “Exquisite Corpse“, which deftly blends infectious, arena rock melodies with theatrical, occult rock sensibilities. Equal parts shred and dread, “Exquisite Corpse” is a glorious example of the finely-honed meld of strident metal grit and devilishly catchy pop suss that Spell has made its own. Stream the video for “Exquisite Corpse“, created by Jamie Ward, at this location.
“It’s so easy to idealize the past and remember things in a way that was never really true,” says vocalist and bassist Cam Mesmer of the “Exquisite Corpse” lyrics. “Especially when we lose people, we can tend to think about them in a perfect way, and mourn the loss of an idealised imaginary person that never really existed in the first place“.
‘Wretched Heart‘ has met to radiant acclaim in the weeks leading to its release, the LP being hailed as “surely the most fun metal record of the year“, “Gothic, hypnotic, and thunderous“, “absolutely fantastic“, “a glorious heavy metal offering“, and “a strain of metal that falls somewhere between the early bat-eating years of the immortal Ozzy Osbourne and Opeth after it got tired of making hearse-black music for torching churches“.
‘Wretched Heart‘, in all its gory glory, embodies a very vital paradox – a record made by true believers who yearn for catharsis beyond. The oxymoron of anthems forged from steel, yet with a very human heart. Even the most cynical bystander will likely struggle not to be bewitched.
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