Description
Clear vinyl with 4 page insert
Music, like dreams, exists in feeling rather than explanation. In sleep, the strangest things can elicit joy or terror — this is why dreams are so difficult to articulate. Creating music, for me, is similar; often, I’ll wake in the dead of night with a powerful feeling or melody in my mind, not connected to reality in any concrete way. I’ll then leap out of bed to try and capture it before it disappears. Thus reckons Cam Mesmer, bassist and vocalist of Spell. Hailing from Vancouver, British Columbia, yet divining their art from the realm of nocturnal visions and fantasies, this band have already proven themselves mighty chroniclers of the more supernatural quarters of the heavy music sphere. Opulent Decay, the band’s third and finest record to date is an emotionally charged psychic travelogue wreathed in mysticism. Opulent Decay embraces harmonic guitar heraldry while also showcasing a band as adept at essaying a hymnal acapella piece like the beguiling Ataraxia as they are the wistful and melancholic Dawn Wanderer, the pastoral-tinged and progressively slanted Primrose Path or the catchy and barnstorming title-track. Many bands find their third album the most difficult because they’re trying to recreate what they’ve already done; for us, it gets easier and better every time, clarifies Cam. As ideas emerged during the writing process, we nurtured them and gave them all the time and care they needed to flourish and bloom. Lyrically, as well as the influence of romantic poets like Keats, Shelley and Coleridge, there’s an underlying concept, as Cam explains: All of the songs deal with the contrast between opulence and austerity, and the decay that results from imbalance. Our drive to avoid suffering is strong, but it can be overcome by the love for another and the desire to put them before yourself. Opulent Decay examines this balance and the dangers that await on either side of the pendulum. Some might hear the echoes of legends like Rush and Blue Öyster Cult in these chimerical serenades, but this is a record that sounds like no one but Spell. With Opulent Decay, the band marks their own delirious and affecting journey towards musical nirvana, above and beyond any spurious notions of retro-chic.
Track list:
1. Psychic Death
2. Opulent Decay
3. Sibyl Vane
4. Primrose Path
5. The Iron Wind
6. Dawn Wanderer
7. Deceiver
8. Ataraxia
9. Imprisoned by Shadows
10. Saturns Riddle