TRISTESSE HIVERNALE

'Tristesse Hivernale' - Alcest (4/10)

Now one of the most legendary and revered names in the blackgaze and post black metal circles, Alcest has developed into quite a unique entity since first starting off here. When Alcest frontman and mastermind Neige was only 15, he began his work with Alcest with 'Tristesse Hivernale', an incredibly raw piece of atmospheric black metal. Here, Alcest is still a band as opposed to a solo project, and fairly typical for most black metal. Although incredibly poor production values (even for black metal) rob 'Tristesse' of being a wholeheartedly enjoyable experience, there is promise shown here that would be fully realized in later works.

'Tristesse Hivernale' is made of twenty minutes of howls, rough electric guitar work, somewhat simplistic blastbeats and some of the worst production values I've ever heard from a band I care about. The saving grace here though is in the composition of the music itself, which while hard to listen to at times, still really shows a grasp of the genre that many of the bigger names at the time were getting recognized for. It may be difficult at times to hear the riffs unless one listens closely, but even this early on, it is possible to hear the emotional impact of the riffs. Although there is very little of Alcest's shoegaze elements to speak of here, things do get mellow from time to time, which is much less hindered by the weak production than any of the heavier material.

Certainly a demo only for the fans of Alcest or black metal purists, but as weak a listening experience as this may be, the potential can be heard here.

Why is this on progarchives? One is left with the feeling that it is only or the sake of completeness of the discography of an artist that would undoubtedly become more and more progressive as the years rolled on. This initial release, however, really bears little resemblence to anything progressive. It is pure black metal (one might even go so far as to call it 'trv cvlt black metal'). Sure, perhaps it is a more ambient and interesting black metal release than you proggers tend to anticipate, but this is still definitely more burzum or dark throne than it is king crimson or van der graaf generator.

Everything here is very lo-fi. The guitars hiss with an almost static-y crackle. The drums sound like your mother thumping an old aluminium biscuit tin. The vocals are not so far from the noise of fingernails clawing on a blackboard, except the blackboard is someone's vocal chords, and the fingernails are dipped in acid. And cobra-venom. And on fire.

And yet...and yet...I like it. I wasn't always a progger, you know. The first album I ever bought was metallica's 'ride the lightning'. I was a metalhead before I'd ever heard of genesis. And this is a good ambient black metal album. Not greatness (at least, not yet) but already our one-man-band showed signs of promise.

3/5 (really 2.5, but this band went on to greatness, so i'm being generous and rounding up)