*** Go to our YouTube channel in the link below to see the video review of this record in episode #15 of the SBR Album of the Week.
Constellatia’s luscious 2019 debut gained momentum as an instant classic in the post-black metal scene and landed them a deal with Season of Mist a year later. SBR commented in our review of The Language of Limbs that the South African quartet are ‘like a shoegaze band incorporating elements of extreme metal rather than the other way around.’ With plans to tour the globe in 2023 and a sophomore album that promises to realise the full potential of mixing post-metal with dream pop, Constellatia are ready to fill the void left by Agalloch. Indeed, Magisterial Romance is a remarkable piece of work.
The unsatisfactory label of blackgaze does not apply to Constellatia. They draw from the same influences as Deaf Heaven and Alcest but inhabit a fluorescent post-metal paradox that never fails to move you with its awesome power and purpose. Like their debut, this album exists on the basis of four longform compositions spread over thirty-eight minutes, all of which flow like the stunning waterfalls of the Jonkershoek Nature Reserve in their native Cape Town. The first caress of the guitar chords in opener, ‘Palace’, transports you back to the ethereal glory of the early 1980s Cocteau Twins records, invoking the slow-motion beauty of the ocean spray and the dreamy resonance of a wonderland more felicitous than the Scottish Highlands. By contrast, the agonising scream projections of Keenan Oakes flavour the melodies with a cathartic rage worthy of Neurosis. This is a paean to the glory of solitude, and yet, it’s also a sombre reflection on the burden of existence. Gideon Lamprecht’s orgasmic guitar solos will catch you off guard as you absorb the reverb-drenched distortions and crescendo of blast beats with closed eyes and a clenched jaw. The human scream that follows the reset to ambient pastures at 04:25 seconds follows the same transience as the guitars and keyboards – they merge like the dissolving colours of a passing rainbow.
‘In Vituperation’ is a brave experiment of sparkling arpeggio shapes and harsh vocals with the double-timing beats of thrash metal and the incorporeal guitar textures of My Bloody Valentine. The eight minutes and forty-seven seconds wash over your head like a brief respite of drizzle on a crisp autumn day. You can imagine yourself traversing the fells of England’s Lake District on your own with the invigorating clean air and an urn of ashes in your backpack, ready to scatter into the eco-system. Is it the dream world of shoegaze or the existential angst of Cult of Luna that takes hold of you on ‘Adorn’? The elegant mezzo soprano pining of guest vocalist, Alison Rachel, flutters in and out of the mix like friendly ghost spirits returning to the netherworld after a good deed of kindness. Robert Smith of The Cure would appreciate the effulgent splash of melody that comes from the heavy-gain amps. The agonising male vocals strain the tonsils and drain the lungs with the anguish of a person who realises he’ll be buried alive unless he does something about his desperate predicament.
Major chords and colourful textures often have little place to operate within a metal paradigm, but Constellatia offer a rare example how both can work in aggressive music. Closing track, ‘Paean Emerging’, sparkles with the brave-face emotion of the Manic Street Preachers’ 1996 classic, Everything Must Go (see their song, ‘The Girl Who Wanted to be God’), yet it also reaches an alarming temperature of rage when the skank beats and octave-piercing screams veer the song off course and in a darker direction. There’s a light at the end of the tunnel here, and the band are desperate to get there no matter what the trials and tribulations. You’ll feel drained of adrenaline and bereft of anxiety by the end of it all, and that’s the point of Magisterial Romance.
It’s difficult to translate the emotion of anguish into a worthy musical entity, but Constellatia make it look much simpler than it should be. As a creative outlet, their sophomore LP is a stunning success of the heart and a bold triumph of the tortured mind.
JVB
Verdict
Release Date: 11/11/2022
Record Label: Season of Mist
Standout tracks: Palace, Adorn
Suggested Further Listening: Black Math Horseman – Black Math Horseman (2022), Agalloch – Marrow of the Spirit (2010), Møl – Diorama (2021)