A core facet of the human experience is that of compelling, powerful emotions. About how within our busy lives, halting for a moment can bring with it overwhelming feelings; positive or negative, and perhaps even ultimately unexpected. How such moments can highlight your headspace more than you even realised until you have that reprieve? It is this mindset that South Africa’s Constellatia are perfectly suited to with the latest release Magisterial Romance (Season of Mist) serving a worthy soundtrack to a reflective pause.
Magisterial Romance is a soaring journey through various tones throughout with little repetition of musical passages, and brings depth that belies its relatively short run time. Album opener ‘Palace’ for example, commences with a moody ambience which builds in instrumentation with a contemplative manner, before Keenan Oakes’ despair-addled growls come to the fold. Each of the album’s four songs break the nine-minute mark so ‘Palace’ continues on a soaring, ethereal atmosphere before a drop at around the half way point, soon leading to comparatively fierce, black metal style guitars and wails taking hold.
It is a style of interplay that continues for much of the rest of the album; for example ‘In Vituperation’ has a similar build and shift from the mellow in to harsher climes. The marriage of black metal with shoegaze-like elements will of course invoke the likes of Alcest, an unlikely but excellent pairing that is fully highlighted part way through ‘Adorn’ as Honeymoon’s Alison Rachel returns to deliver serene singing which adds a further wistful quality.
Magisterial Romance is projected to convey an array of emotions from the joyous and the pained and is a timely reminder of how one can veer between such stark emotions so quickly. It is perhaps cliche to state that an album requires your undivided attention to fully grasp but that is truly the case with Magisterial Romance as it is able to subtly move through tones. Like that momentary pause, this album has that uncanny ability to make you feel how you perhaps were not expecting to and with this, Constellatia have shown further evidence they can become a truly special act.
Buy the album here:
https://constellatia.bandcamp.com/album/magisterial-romance
7 / 10
CHRIS TIPPELL