Constancia

The story so far

It all started in 2007, as the brainchild of former Scudiero/Token keyboard player Mikael Rosengren. He had written a bunch of songs that he wanted to record. He got in touch with guitarist Janne Stark (Overdrive, Grand Design, Locomotive Breath etc) and asked him to lay down some guitars. Janne loved the songs and got more and more involved in the process, and the seeds of Constancia were sown. They now felt it was time to get a full band together. Janne contacted drummer Peter “TrumPeter” Svensson (ex-Mercy, Faith), with whom he had worked in Overheat, Locomotive Breath and Mountain of Power. Mikael drafted Jaded Heart bassist Michael Mueller, and they tried out various vocalists before finding David Fremberg. David is also fronting progressive rockers Andromeda and had also worked with Janne on his first Mountain Of Power album. They overcame the vast geographical distances, with Mueller living in Germany, and the debut album “Lost And Gone” saw the light of day in July 2009. The producer, Fredrik Folkare (Unleashed, Token, Eclipse), was carefully selected after the band had received outstanding test mixes from great people like Beau Hill, Pontus Norgren and Pelle Saether. Fredrik was just right for the band’s “melogressive” metal (melodic, yet a bit aggressive and a touch progressive). The album received rave reviews in magazines like Classic Rock, Rock Hard, PowerPlay, Fireworks and Rock It.

The geographical distances however made it difficult for the band to get a good live situation going.

In 2013 the work process for the band’s second album started. Since Michael Mueller was busy with other musical projects the band had to find a new bass player. Janne, David and drummer Peter are from the same region, and they figured getting a bass player from that region would be a good idea. Why not someone they already knew? Enter Linus Abrahamson, also a member of Andromeda. Instead of rushing out a new album, the band let the process take some time and the band spent 2013 and most part of 2014 working on the songs, recording and mixing. The way the song-writing process goes is: Mikael writes the basic structure of the song with some vocal and lyrical ideas, then sends it to Janne, who pitches in with some additional ideas, arrangements, melodies and lyrics. David then adds some of his vocal melodies. This time the production was also kept under the Constancia umbrella. Since David is working as a producer, why not let him do it? This was a very smart plan, since David already had a lot of great production ideas.

Final Curtain? Is this the end? No way! The song is about the end of a life but also that there may be something new behind the curtain. A lot of the lyrical themes on the album reflect things and thoughts of everyday life such as not being true to yourself, political hypocrisy, the birth of a child, long bus rides with people not of your choice, love and the fascination of fear.

The band started working on new material in 2019, but since there was real rush and the members were quite busy with other project they took their time. By the end of the year the songs were ready (well, so they thought) and in 2020 the recording commenced. When all the music was recorded and ready, singer David Fremberg announced he didn't have the time to continue working with the band. Since Janne was already working with Blood Red Saints singer Pete Godfrey, writing songs, he asked he would be into joining the bamd. He was! He also contributed a lot to the new album, writing lyricand and new vocals melodies and arrangements. Suddenly it became a whole new album! Since the band was very happy with the production of the debut "Lost And Gone", they decided to approach producer Fredrik Folkare again, and he was happy to work with the band. The result was 11 new melogressive tracks of the highest order, unleashed as the album "Brave New World" on June 18, in 2021, on Pride & Joy Music! The album was also released in a limited edition on vinyl. 

In 2023 Mikael had again come up with a new bunch of songs, which Janne put his teeth into, and also came up with an additional song. Since Linus left the band just after the release of "Brave New World", Janne also took care of the bass playing on the new songs. Late November Pete started working on vocal melodies and lyrics and by the end of December 12 songs were finished! In January 2024 the album was mixed and mastered, ready to be unleashed in 2024!