KODAMA

Although I liked Alcest's first two albums and considered their particular take on the "Blackgaze" style of black metal/shoegaze mashup to be quite pleasing, their third album Les voyages de l'âme seemed to find the approach wearing thin, Neige and crew seeming to lose interest in the black metal part of their formula. Their fourth album, Shelter, only served to confirm that impression in my eyes, since it saw them more or less entirely drop the black metal aspects of their sound for a more purely shoegaze approach.

However, perhaps just this sort of diversion was needed to allow Alcest to recharge their black metal batteries, because the full blackgaze style is back on Kodama, a concept album inspired by the conflict between the human and natural worlds as depicted in the classic anime movie Princess Mononoke. The concept isn't as awkward a fit for atmospheric black metal as you may think - after all, aren't Wolves In the Throne Room positively obsessed with just such ideas? - and though the delivery doesn't seem to draw very much on traditional Japanese music (or anime soundtracks) stylistically, it does feel like a welcome return to form for Alcest, and perhaps even their best yet. If the previous two albums were a necessary detour along the way to making this one, then this leaves me slightly better- disposed towards them.