ALCEST

After returning to my vinyl collection, I gave this one a listen in a tense post-rehearsal mahjong session with the rest of my band. Alcest have always been one of our biggest influences, even to the point of over-influence, but this seems to be the one of their classic albums that we're least keen on. I still like it though, even if it's nothing on the two that followed. More subdued and romantic, and honestly there are enough good melodies here to forgive the relative lack of dynamics.

8.4 (14th listen)

Part of my listening diary from my facebook music blog - www.facebook.com/TheExoskeletalJunction

Almost ten years have passed since I discovered Alcest, a band I loved since the very first minute, a band I've followed closely through those years. It was love at first sight. And now, I am here to celebrate the release of 'Spiritual Instinct', their sixth studio album which recently saw the light through Nuclear Blast.

Neige and Winterhalter have become a wonderful team, and though Alcest is basically Neige's child, he's found in Winterhalter his best partner. For this record they created six enigmatic tracks that sound just like Alcest, not another band, and that is something great, it is not easy to create a unique sound that can be recognized within some seconds. The total length of this work is 41 minutes.

It starts with 'Les Jardins de Minuit', a solid first track that shows that wonderful blend of black metal and post rock this project has. The power of their music is evident since the very first minute, fast drums, those vocals and cool changes all over the song. And although I like it, there might be a problem there: it doesn't really show anything new.

The start of 'Protection' reminds me a lot of 'La Ou Naissent les Couleurs Nouvelles', it is curious that it is also a track number two. The music develops dark atmospheres, rock meets shoegaze and metal, and what I always love about this band is that use of clean and growl vocals, Neige knows very well how to do that.

'Sapphire' is the shortest song here and to be honest, has a rhythm quite alike to what we've already experience on the album, anyway, the high quality is always present, I love the screams, the guitars and the sensation of being in the woods running and being one with the wildlife (it is my mind, I know). It is maybe a catchier song, so anyone that doesn't know Alcest might like it.

'L'ile des Morts' is, on the other hand, the longest composition here, a track that develops a diversity of nuances in both, the instrumental parts and the ones with vocals, in fact, I believe the instrumental passages here are the best from the whole record, exciting moments full of rage, hope, brightness and darkness. A clear example of how Alcest manage to create countless emotions.

'Le miroir' starts with heavy and dark bass and guitars but then it vanishes and a new brighter and charming sound appears. This kind of beautiful passages are also a signature sound of Alcest, one can close the eyes, feel that peace and enjoy life. Though I don't understand French (sorry), I let my mind and soul to just feel, and that sometimes is enough.

The final song is 'Spiritual Instinct' is a very nice track that sums up what the album is about. And I'll be honest, I enjoy the album, all the times I've listened to it I've liked it, however, I think the guys just felt comfortable to show more of the same and don't give memorable gems, maybe their goal is not to create catchy singles, but in difference with previous albums, here I could not find outstanding songs and though while listening to them my mind reacts saying 'it is Alcest', it does not says 'it is THIS Alcest song', maybe they are not meant to be remembered.

An average Alcest album and probably me least favorite so far. But you know, things change.

Since SOUVENIRS D'UN AUTRE MONDE is a Neige solo album in disguise, it is of no surprise that it sounds quite different than the albums such as "Écailles De Lune" that follow. While the band has been tagged as shoegaze, blackgaze, post-rock and experimental metal, this debut yields very little in the metal department and is in effect a post-rock album that happens to have a guitar chords that ruffle their feathers to look bigger than they actually are. Like most post-rock, SOUVENIRS relies on a hypnotic run of soft dreamy guitar arpeggios and riffs that ratchet up the tension and ultimately find some sort of crescendo. The overall mood of the album is dark, dripping in nostalgia, rueful regret and euphoric yearning for blissful peace.

It's hard for me to review this album because in all honesty because i find it utterly boring. While this debut has been lauded since ALCEST first hit the scene in the mid naughts, i have had a very difficult time understanding why this clicks with so many and yet leaves me as cold as a whale's ass in the Arctic Ocean. While the future albums are actually quite engaging, this one seems to juxtapose all the wrong elements together in all the wrong places, at least for my tastes. First of all, the vocals are the most annoying of all, sounding like some indie pop twee garage band from small town USA. Despite being tagged metal, there are no metal vocals whatsoever with completely clean vocals dominating the entire album's run.

Secondly, this album chugs along at a snail's pace and never really engages in any dramatic changes. This is a true zone out album if i've ever heard one. While i love post-rock, indie rock, indie pop, post-metal and all the genres this is purported to be, SOUVENIRS is simply mediocre all the way around. It is a lazy breezy type of album that just floats by on codeine with no dramatic passages really ever emerging from the nonchalant drifting through the proper post-rock expectations. Next complaint, the instrumental parts just don't work together for my liking. Neige attempts to deliver black metal attributes such as tremolo picking and guitar solos but performs them so half-assed that it sounds too ridiculous for black metal and likewise sounds too out of character for post-rock.

I can understand some music lover's infatuation with emotional content being enough to make a good album but that is not the case with yours truly. Emotional connections in a pool of mediocrity equals, well, mediocrity. Probably the most competent aspect of SOUVENIRS is the production and mixing job. I do have to admit that the atmospheric qualities work quite well and indeed in retrospect ALCEST was one of the big players that brought the term blackgaze into existence with their debut EP "Le Secret," however Neige got all wimpy with the black metal aspects without jettisoning them all together which creates a rather tenuous vacuous tinniness within the overall structure of the compositions. Well, i'm glad some people can find pleasure in this debut by ALCEST because i sure can't, but i'm all on board starting with the second album.

Blackgaze. Such a beautiful, aesthetic name for a genre. It combines shoegaze's immersion with black metal's heavy and bleak riffages, creating an atmosphere that feels simultaneously warm and melancholic; like a dismal cloudy day, whose dreariness is depressing but, strangely, comfortable. Alcest. Since their first EP, LE SECRET, they solidified their position as forerunners of the genre; however, in their 2014 album (SHELTER), apparently the band changed their directions to pure dream pop/shoegaze. Kodama. A beautiful, nocturnal, cryptic cover (one of my favorite covers ever! The only reason I tried this album, to be honest), with a strange concept (related to the movie Princess Mononoke), and ALCEST's return to their acclaimed blackgaze style.

I can't say as a knowledgeable authority this is ALCEST at the top of their game, but the production, songwriting, and musicianship seem to indicate that, at the very least, they're doing pretty well. Blackgaze's peculiar style is enticing and unique, and through KODAMA's forty minutes, my ears were engulfed in ALCEST's fogginess. While my experience was good, I found the sameness to be KODAMA's biggest issue. Offering little variation, repetitive riffs, annoyingly unintelligible screams (sound awesome but are absolutely impossible to decipher or accompany; additionally, the clean vocals are much better), there's honestly no effort to make the tracks feel different from each other. Perhaps intentionally, perhaps not, KODAMA is shaped, sonically, as a huge, forty-minutes-long song. But who is to blame? Not black metal nor shoegaze are known for eclecticism. ALCEST would naturally suffer from that hereditary dysfunction.

KODAMA (and ALCEST) didn't disappoint but neither did they astound me. While this will undoubtedly be a treat for shoegaze/atmospheric black metal fans, personally, I found it enjoyable but unmemorable.

Oh, let me add nuance to that last word: while I do remember my experience with KODAMA, literally any moment of it that pops in my mind sounds virtually the same.

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 Alcest more confidently setting forth their particular formula, though it is a formula which I've grown weary of.

After the relative disappointment of Shelter, Neige and co. seem to have decided to return to earlier times and sounds in most ways. These are thoughtful compositions...moving from contemplative to aggressive in the wink of an eye. Even my cat has been surprised by some of the sudden tempo or volume changes, and he snatches birds out of the sky. The vocals either caress or scream. Yes! the screams are back! Yes the guitar washes are back! Everything that I loved about these guys is here in spades. Overall the production seems more fitting which is to say there is now a bottom end, something I complained about on the earlier albums.

I read something somewhere that said this was their "Japanese" album. I don't know what a "Japanese" album is, though I've always liked that song Sukiyaki. I guess, yes, Neige said it was influenced by the film Princess Mononoke. Well enough. It is all full of light and darkness, of earth and air, of death and life.

Of course I still do not understand the words (my fault, I don't speak French). Welcome back Alcest. I'd forgotten about you and it's good to see an old friend can still awe.

It was always going to come to this.

When you are the forefront of a genre, you can imagine the difficulty when you inevitably get tired of what you've created. Historical examples come in plenty, either an artist keeps plugging away at the same thing, most of the time missing the point, although occasionally getting some good material in, or the artist will completely leave behind the style, maybe start a new band in a different genre, or just take a complete tangent to the it, alienating fans, but also creating new ones. I could take the example of a band like Marillion, who more or less invented Neo-Prog, leaving the style in the dust after just four records, because I think they felt it was getting dry already. And then their counterparts, IQ, who stuck with the style for their whole career, knocking away at getting it right, but never quite getting the same as the beginning (of course, for the sake of analogy, I'll ignore Frequency, which is obviously their best).

So Neige, frontrunner of this 'Blackgaze' genre that's been coming up for a while, has finally decided to leave it behind, with the fourth full-length album of Alcest, his main band, Shelter. It wasn't hard to see this coming, Les voyages de l'âme was more or less a dark Shoegaze album with a couple of blast beats and screaming parts, and mapping the natural progressions of musicians normally show them creating full albums based on small elements introduced in previous records. Hopefully this means the next Alcest album will be entirely in English sung by Neil Halstead?

Neige has little tricks that he uses, throughout all of the Alcest releases, an even over into his other bands, like Lantlôs and Amesoeurs. You'll know the delay-ridden acoustic guitar, the low rumble of what is often a loop of Neige singing a single note, the slightly jangly chord sound that often comes in after the aforementioned acoustic/delay part. Theory people will know the diminished chords and the resolutions on V and IV, just the little things that remind us of who's composing. But what Neige has done with Shelter, by cutting off any remnants of their metal past, black metal or not, he has essentially cut his list of tricks in two. Gone are the blast beats, the fantastic screams. Gone are the reverb-drenched overdrive riffs that pack such a punch to this dreamy music. And although I'm trying not to sound like a disgruntled metalhead who wants it to be br00tal, it means that this album is mostly one-sided.

And sure, you could argue that dropping the heaviness could open Neige up to new sounds, but honestly, this is just everything on the previous records, but without the metal. Sure, the addition of the string parts is new, but that just piles on the dreaminess even more until it becomes Valtari-levels of ambience. This album is more or less the same thing start to finish in terms of mood and atmosphere.

But as much as this is a change from the Alcest I love, this is still a great record. It's slow, I'll admit, but once you give it a few listens, even the tiny little melodies that each track develops become glorious. Alcest have always been about emotion, in all of their albums, and Shelter is no different. Except, unlike Écailles de lune, this isn't a depressing album that you want to listen to alone in a darkened room and cry about. This is an uplifting record, euphoric even. The same level of emotional saturation that Alcest have had is still there, but it's focused on happy emotions. Glory, peace, dreams, aspirations, the haze isn't a cover over darkened emotions anymore, it's a positive haze, like staring at the sun?

Oh yeah, I'm trying hard not to mention a certain big deal with a pink cover that people are inevitably going to compare this to, but it's just too obvious. Alcest have gone happy, the cover is a blurry picture of the sun with people covering it. It'll be hard to avoid mentioning the words sun, bat, and her. But in my honest opinion, Sunbather wasn't a happy record, at least not like Shelter is. People are inevitably going to say that Alcest are copying, or bandwagoning with, Deafheaven, with the concept and idea behind this album, so I feel we need to mention the fact that Deafheaven wouldn't exist without Alcest. Moving on?

I've a had a huge case of the lead single effect with "Opale", a track that I didn't think much of when its video was released, but now can't get enough of. The lead hook, the atmospheric aaahs and oohs that the album opens with in "Wings" may be insanely simple, but somehow Neige creates a beautifully uplifting atmosphere with such a simple motif, which is more or less the essence of Alcest's music. The same thing happens in "Voix Sereines", another of my favourite tracks, with that simple little motif that even a child could think of, but Neige uses his voice and his pedalboard to bring it to utter glory. But I have to comment on the lead riff of "Opale", which I'm still not convinced on. It just feels slightly off. I really like the notes and the progression, but the rhythm is weird and off-putting, somehow sounding like it's in an odd signature when it's really in straight 4/4. I thought that it would grow on me and I would get used to it, but it still bugs me 10 listens later.

The other highlight track here is obviously going to be "Away", Alcest's first English song, featuring Slowdive singer Neil Halstead. On my first listen to Shelter, I have to admit that it got a bit boring, as pleasant and pretty as it was. The songs just mix into a haze of ambient vocals and delay and reverb and (new on this record) strings. But then Away comes, with Neil's rather regular vocal delivery, speaking in English. Now, I have to admit my lack of education that, despite knowing about them for years, I have never actually listened to Slowdive (although I know exactly what I'm doing when this review is done), but the match of this simple voice with Alcest's dreamy instrumentation is nearly perfect. Neige's distant background vocals lift up the chorus to great heights, and with this song situated right around the point when you start to get bored of the same sound, it's nearly perfect in reminding you that Alcest are still moving forward.

Although I enjoy this record, I feel in terms of the sheer number of great riffs and motifs throughout Écailles De Lune and Les Voyages, this is always going to pale in comparison. The mood of the music is new and fresh and wonderful for Alcest, but I think in terms of the quantity of riffs that I say are amazing, this isn't their best. And I think, honestly, that's the only reason that I believe this is the weakest Alcest album yet, simply because of the quantity of great ideas. I love it, but taking the perspective of others, I can see how many who are not Alcest fanboys may find this 'boring'. I really hope Neige continues the happier mood onto further albums, but he really should develop some more great melodies to base the atmosphere on. Like the final track, 10-minute "Délivrance". Ever since "Eccailes De Lune", the idea of a 10-minute Alcest track has been in the minds of everyone, wanting another thundering epic. But Délivrance just sort of meanders, holding together its main theme in waves of ambience. It's pleasant music, but the fact that the 9 minutes of "Eccailes De Lune Part I" had more riffs than half of this album really shows how drawn out these pieces are becoming.

Shelter may not be a perfect record. It lacks the sheer quantity of great riffs and melodies that the past Alcest albums had, but I'm definitely loving the happier side. Allegedly this is the first Alcest record where Neige has stopped writing about his 'experience' (what it exactly is is still unclear), when he was a child, representing a moving forward of Alcest's music into something new. Even though I think that Les Voyages is their best record, I could definitely see where people were coming from when they said it was trying to recreate past glory, and Shelter is most certainly a big step forward. It does get a bit empty sometimes, and a few of the songs, for a significant amount of time, are just pleasant ambience, but Opale and Away are definitely amongst Alcest's best tracks.

8.0

Originally written for my Facebook page/blog: www.facebook.com/neoprogisbestprog

To be honest, I'm surprised Alcest haven't been featured in a Subaru commercial already. If that's a stretch, it's at least a near-certainty we'll be hearing them on a movie trailer for some coming-of-age romantic comedy. Regardless whether this prediction is meant to be taken in jest (It's not), it's pretty clear that Alcest have, by this point, drifted away entirely from the metal sphere. While Les voyages de l'âme suggested that the band's frontman Neige was more inclined towards the shoegazey end of the so-called 'blackgaze' fusion he's said to have pioneered, Shelter is proof of the band's completed shift. For all the discussion and debate this transformation has caused however, surprisingly little has changed in the band's atmosphere and approach. Reverb-laden guitars, fragile vocals and a Romantic longing for childlike essence are all familiar ideas for Alcest. Shelter holds the fort for the most part, but save for a handful of (admittedly brilliant) standout moments, this album does little to compete with the excellence of the first two.

I might describe the work of Alcest as 'dreamlike'. Not surreal or twisted by any means, but rather the sort of innocent atmosphere you might find in a child's storybook. For about as long as Alcest's existed as anything but a demo black metal outfit, they've sought to unlock that Romantic notion of inner-looking melancholy in their listeners. On a more technical level, their fusion of black metal and traditional shoegaze aesthetics has since earned them a legion of imitators. While it's certainly surprising to have seen them turn their backs so absolutely on a style they're said to have invented (or at least popularized), the move into undisputed shoegaze territory hasn't resulted in too much of a practical change in sound. After all, even at their most intense, Alcest were never 'particularly' metal to begin with.

If anything's really evolved since the third album, it's the emotional tone. Particularly on Écailles de lune, Alcest have been caught in a tug-of-war between feelings of sad melancholy and purely optimistic hope. Although the final decision isn't as absolute and one-sided as the metal-shoegaze debate, it's clear that Alcest have taken a turn for the bright and cheery. If the album cover's any indication, the darkness has been swept away; whatever hints of sadness remain are left as suggestions at best. The much-talked about single "Opale" is an example of happiness at its most pure; shimmering guitars, lively leads and gentle vocals convey a rare sense of carefreeness that even Alcest have never before explored. The trite video, which may be summarized as a pair of amorous teens chasing each other around with neon paints, highlights the sweetness to the point of diabetes-inducing saccharine, but the song itself is quite solid.

Let it be known I have nothing against happiness or optimism in music, but listening to Shelter as a whole, I recall the perennial debate whether or not great art is possible without unhappiness. The general quality of songwriting is roughly consistent with "Les voyages de l'âme", but the streamlined emotional palette leaves Shelter feeling a little empty. Looking at "Opale", for example: where the cheerful leads may have been counterpointed with a tinge of sadness on past albums, there's scarcely depth beyond the surface impression. It can be said that others (like "La nuit marche avec moi") lend themselves better to emotional interpretation, but Shelter is largely defined by surface-value cheer and atmosphere.

The clear exception (and emotional highlight) here is the ten minute closing track. "Délivrance" has been earned some well-deserved praise individually, and having seen Alcest close off a live set late last year with it, I can confidently call it one of the best tracks they have ever done. Where most of Shelter sounds like a pleasantly typical shoegaze record, "Délivrance" achieves the sort of transcendental beauty I knew Alcest were capable of. It may take a while to get going, but this mini-epic is structured with purpose and intention. Building gradually, it eventually erupts into a quasi-choral idea that falls nothing short of being gorgeous.

On the topic of voices, Neige's clean vocals have always been fragile, but I have always thought that sense of vulnerability worked well for the tone they were going for. On Shelter however, his voice too-often crosses the boundary into whininess. The voice itself hasn't changed much since the debut, but there's the impression Neige has become a little too confident with his vocals. Where they may have been comfortably muddled in the mix on the debut, they now come front and center relative to all else. Even when I may have found myself annoyed by his voice on past albums, the voice took shelter in the waves of distortion and effects. Neige has little such protection on Shelter; he can still be praised for having a relatively distinctive voice all things considered, but the static elfishness does little to sway me. On a tangential note, it's a shame Neige decided to let go of his harsh vocals; I'm by no means prejudiced against a non-metal Alcest, but his shrieks were among the most impressive and atmospheric ingredients the band had to offer. His relatively mediocre clean vocals could have even worked here, but I'd have hoped to hear them play a more subdued role. It should also be noted that Neil Halstead (of Slowdive, Neige's favourite band if I'm not mistaken) offers his voice on the song "Away". Maybe you need to be an existing fan of Slowdive to appreciate the guest spot, but I think his performance sounds terrible. It's no doubt a great honour for Neige to have one of his musical icons contributing to his work, but Halstead's low-register croon doesn't translate well here.

To put it briefly, it generally feels like Alcest have stayed their natural course with this one. Even if the stylistic evolution is noticeable, the shift towards shoegaze isn't surprising. Shelter sounds remarkably pretty, and it's well-executed, but I'm not hearing a lot of inspiration amidst the reverberated guitars and lilting voices. Am I condemning Shelter for being 'too happy'? Not at all- Anathema's latest couple of albums are even cheerier than this, and they move me plenty. In most respects Alcest have crafted a solid album here, but it pales in comparison to what they've done in the past. In that sense, I cannot help but feel disappointed.