SPELLES search for and surrender to an elusive but entrancing power on their debut album Diving Into the Arms of the Divine. After two EPs and a run of stand-alone singles duo Kathryn Baar and Luc Laurent have finally coalesced their hauntingly provocative energies around a full-length record. The result is an 11-track submergence into their inward journey — one that finds them confronting life’s brevity with an acquiescence toward something greater than themselves.
They begin that plunge with “Intro (The Abyss)” where the resonant hum of cello strings lulls you deeper into the band’s enthrallingly grim soundscapes. On “Night Terrors” they stare down their fears — “Beautiful ghosts / Keep me up at night / What haunts you the most? / My unlived life” — emerging from the darkness broodingly triumphant, propelled by a gallop of heady percussion.
“Holy Hells” further exalts the endurance of the spirit needed to outlast one’s personal hells, Baar’s rapt cries carried by a wave of gospel-esque backing vocals. Then there’s the anthemically macabre “Flesh and Bone,” where sullen questions about the limitations of mortality collide with audacious humanity. “We are masters of our fate / Some devoured by oblivion,” Baar sings. “You’re moving forward / Or you’re circling a cage.”
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SPELLES slow things down with “Double Life” — a smoldering, bluesy slow burner that bristles against the need to pretend to be something you’re not just to survive. Those sentiments are launched through a jittery and ecstatic melody on “Diaspora, The Horses” as they give an electrifying refusal to relinquish their soul to anything but liberation.
But the duo is nowhere more transfixing than when they’re meandering purposefully through crescendoing ballads, waxing philosophic on escape within tracks like “Beginnings and Endings,” or invoking fiery passion on the sizzlingly eerie “Salvation.” Its soaring outro “Paradise” leaves you instilled with a blazing hope — one that burns alongside but far brighter than the despair and fear that radiate from the album’s unveiling of life.
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“I think a lot of people can relate to the idea that their life doesn’t look (or feel) the way they thought it would when they would dream about the future while growing up,” Baar said of the record. “As someone who has always been a dreamer, that is something that was on my mind a lot while writing this record. This album is very reflective and talks about transformation, internal struggles, the feeling of running out of time, and chasing an elusive dream.”
Words: Steven Ward
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Listen to Diving Into the Arms of the Divine the new album from SPELLES below!
