Spell
Full Moon Sessions (Hard and Heavy)

With this being the year of the super moon, the arrival of Spell’s Full Moon Sessions seems rather timely. Sonically, it’s a different story, with the Vancouver trio apparently having conjured up a time-travelling Camaro to capture the sound of early-’80s metal.

Bullet belts buckled tight, the band ambitiously opens with a nine-minute track combining the original tune “Never Enough” with a cover of Fleetwood Mac’s “Sisters of the Moon”. The extended arrangement comes with mixed results, as the front end’s paint-stripping falsetto screeches, axe-blazing solos, and other hallmarks are lessened by the relative sameness brought to the Stevie Nicks–sung number.

The best tracks push the Spell’s craft to the breaking point of pastiche. “Possessed by Heavy Metal” features pitch-perfect, straight-faced lines about Spell being “consumed by the power of electric rock and roll”, with the fist-pumper further energized by Graham “Gnarly” McGee’s twinned, Iron Maiden–conjuring leads. “Zott Lee” closes things out with a relaxing reel of classical guitar, a soothing balm for the serious bangover Full Moon Sessions is guaranteed to give you.