Spell

Based in Vancouver, Canada, Spell has since the early 2010s developed an approach to heavy metal that blends hard rock, psychedelic rock and doom-inflected accents into a format that is often more melodic than upfront. Formed around musician Cam Mesmer, the project took shape on the Canadian underground scene with a marked taste for occult sounds, harmonies inherited from the 1970s, and a writing approach that brings nervous riffs, more misty passages and choruses with classic contours into coexistence. Spell released Full Moon Sessions in 2014, For None and All in 2016, Opulent Decay in 2020 and Tragic Magic in 2022, a discography that shows a gradual shift from retro-tinged heavy metal toward a softer, more flexible formula, where dark glam, hard rock and gothic atmospheres cross paths. In concert, Spell sits as much in metal circuits as in lineups open to psych and classic rock aesthetics. Spell thus retains an identity tied to the codes of traditional metal while reformulating them with a pronounced sense of melody, nocturnal textures and a constant attention to the evolution of its musical language.