There’s a feeling woven into Kira McSpice’s “Knife Like a Spile” where after listening to it a single time, it’s as if it’s been a part of the universe forever. The first single from her new album, The Compartmentalization of Decay, cuts a valley into calloused skin, to try and cauterize the growing rot at its stem. Processing personal trauma can be a fragmentary, cruel path, but in this music, McSpice stares it down. “Once I had completed the writing I felt that I was beginning to seal it off,” she shares. ” I know it’s still inside of me and that hurt will always be there but it feels contained.”
A swirling mass of guitars, vocals, and horns loom in the periphery as a circling storm. McSpice builds layers of tension with dramatic melodies and her incredible vocal range, heightening the story buried within the song and the overall theme of the record.
Dichotomies endure in the lead’s sharp edges set against the ethereal eddy spinning in every direction. Mika Lungulov-Klotz’s video matches this transgressive spirit, buoying the imagery in McSpice’s words. The striking visuals and narrative progression amplify the sonic landscape, as Lungulov-Klotz explains, “Through layers that dissolve into themselves, [communicating] a slow build toward something unknown but impending.” Strings cascade and elevate the suspense with emotive phrasings, leaving our backs bruised against the rising darkness. “Knife Like a Spile” might deepen the wound at first, but it’s one more step toward the light.
The Compartmentalization of Decay will be released on April 12 and is available to pre-order on vinyl and digital formats HERE.
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Haunting and beautiful!