ALBUM REVIEW: Spellling – Portrait Of My Heart

Sacred Bones Records

Released 28.3.25

If pop punk had a throne in 2025, it would be adorned with the stuff of bedrooms: a pillow of plans, sequins of selfish thoughts with solo dance stitching. So, Spellling, whose interstellar orchestration usually resides between Orion and Mars, was the last name I expected to see vying for its seat. Portrait Of My Heart is a guitar myth whose riffs, drones, wah-wahs and solos soar from My Bloody Valentine to Queen, Aerosmith to Turnstile to Bad Brains and back. And often, dare I say, comes for their throats. Spelling is the solo project of Oakland’s Tia Cabral and on a relisten I even think I heard her ashen wings nick Olivia Rodrigo’s neck on the way down.