When we last caught up with Canadian hypnotic metal horde Spell, they had just released their third studio album, Opulent Decay. From what I recall, it was a wild ride of an album that lie somewhere between flanged out psychedelia, fist-pumping traditional metal, earworm melodies, and unsettling atmosphere. Although I wasn’t immediately “in love” with it, the album caught my attention for sounding like an array of different bands, yet simultaneously sounding like nothing I had heard before. I guess you could say I was under Spell’s spell?
Fast forward a couple years later. Spell’s latest album Tragic Magic, is everything they explored on Opulent Decay and more, albeit with stronger songwriting and more memorable hooks. Is it metal? Is it hard rock? Is it prog? Is it psych? Is it AOR? It’s all of the above, presenting itself with the graceful unevenness of an late 70s/early 80s private press release. Even at its most refined moments, Tragic Magic is too primal to have been a major label release of yore, sounding more in line with an underground band attempting to sound like Rush than Rush proper (i.e. Alpha Centauri).
Tragic Magic opens on a trippy, psychedelic note, thanks to the flanged out guitars and spastic switchovers of the Rush inspired “Fatal Breath”. The Rush influence is all over the lucid “Ultraviolet” as well, but executed in a melodic AOR fashion that the “Priests of the Temples of Syrinx” would never attempt. In fact, AOR dominates a good half of this release. Whether it be the neon lit, synth driven “Fever Dream”, or the Spectres era Blue Öyster Cult meets Toto, yacht metal melody-fests that are “A Ruined Garden” and “Watcher of the Seas”, Spell aren’t afraid to profess their love of classic FM rock.
For those of a heavier disposition, fear not. Spell can still bring the heaviness as well as the finest of the NWOTHM, albeit in their own unique fashion. While accentuated by an AOR chorus, “Hades Embrace” is an aggressive and energetic slab of old school metal with nods to Angel Witch. “Sarcophagus” is an exercise in dark pop metal à la Ghost, and “Cruel Optimism” almost borders on doom territory, with its thick lumbering riffs. Granted, even at their doomiest, Spell evoke more Pentagram than say the Electric Wizard inspired crop of this century.
Armed with a penchant for atmosphere and bittersweet metallic nostalgia, I’d almost go as far to say Tragic Magic comes off as a distant cousin of Sumerlands’s Dreamkiller. Both are carefully crafted old school metal offerings that purposely attempt to avoid the creative pitfalls of the Priest/Maiden clones who have dominated the scene for far too long. Yes, children. There was more to metal in these salad days than these two titans. The more bands there are paying homage to Rush, Blue Öyster Cult, Scorpions, Rainbow, UFO, Ozzy Osbourne, and so on, the better. Spell most certainly does their part with this latest album, which is far more “magic” than “tragic”.
7 out of 10
Label: Bad Omen Records
Genre: Heavy Metal/Hard Rock
For fans of: Rush, Blue Öyster Cult, Ghost