Send "Alcest " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Pitchfork |
 Écailles de Lune, the second LP from romantic black metallurgists Alcest, is the most fully realized effort to date from its frontman and lone constant Neige. The spindly Frenchman has been a member of a half-dozen bands, from the brittle Peste Noire to the wildly and willfully diverse coed quartet Amesoeurs. Since 2005, Neige has been releasing music as Alcest that ranges from the black metal of 2005 EP Le Secret to the Red House Painters-via-Justin Broadrick 2007 LP, Souvenirs d'un Autre Monde. Now, he's finally fit all of his component parts-- arching atmospherics, celestial melodies, suffocating roars-- into one record. At last, Neige has made an album that plays like one.At a time when both legitimately heavy bands like Wolves in the Throne Room and Liturgy and electronic acts like Ben Frost and Fuck Buttons are using black metal ideas to build something bigger, Neige lands one of the most cohesive, well-considered experiments yet. He peels apart the layers of black metal-- lacerated vocals, relentless rhythms, overtone-rich guitars-- and applies them to disparate structures and sounds. On "Percées de Lumière", the rhythm supplies a pace that's nearly krautrock, while the guitars revolve around a minor riff that suggests Slint. So, of course, the metal shifts to the vocals. Neige generally sings gracefully and carefully, but here he screams in black-metal horror. "Écailles de Lune [Part I]", on the other hand, even sounds like a toughened mix of M83 and Sigur Rós, with guitars saturating every space and Neige's voice floating like Jónsi Birgisson's once did. Beneath the surface, however, the militant pacing of drummer Winterhalter and the increasingly sinister note selections of Neige presage something heavier. For the final two minutes, they rage like Scandinavian lords in a high-dollar studio. Thanks to the methodical if subtle way that song develops, moving from staggering rock to twinkling atmospherics to something altogether more intense, it doesn't seem out of place. The same holds for "Part II", which erupts quickly into a brutal rush only to burn itself out, dissolving into a ghastly drone that builds and collapses twice more. The line between the tormented and the gorgeous blurs into an imagined boundary-- tedious to find, delightful to miss....full text |
| Blistering |
| [8/10] High on the “most anticipated” list for this scribe and several others who were awestruck by the majesty that was 2007’s Souvenirs d'un autre monde, Alcest’s newest Écailles de Lune arrives with a newfound set of expectations, ones that just weren’t there last time around. Following up a career (and subgenre) milestone is a high mountain to climb and frankly, it would have taken a Herculean performance to top Souvenirs d'un autre monde. This doesn’t come close, but we’ll take it. Characterizing the Alcest sound would fall somewhere between the unbridled optimism of shoe-gaze pop coupled with wishy-washy black metal overtones. What made Souvenirs... so captivating was the sense of optimism offset by the harsh realities of somber black metal. It’s a strange beast, although mainman Niege has a distinct knack for coalescing various moods into one sonic platform. On Écailles de Lune, the optimism is tempered with a spate of hardened black metal sojourns, although that doesn’t stop the first half of “Écailles de Lune Part 1” from being the monumental high point of the album. The song is overflowing with glorious melodies and Neie’s wistful vocals, eventually decaying into a grim black metal landscape. “Écailles de Lune Part 2” follows suit in the dark department, employing a barrage of black metal advances that come as a bit of a surprise....full text |
| Musicalwarfare |
| While it contains occasional passages reminiscent of the immersive, shoegaze-influenced sound of Souvenirs d’un Autre Monde, Alcest’s latest release Écailles de Lune feels more like a fusion of Neige’s styles in Alcest and other projects. Taking inspiration from the mysteriousness and expansiveness of the seas, Neige has crafted another emotional musical journey, but this one feels much colder and more ethereal than its predecessor. Supposedly Écailles de Lune tells the story of a man leaving one world for another one, and as such it’s divided into two parts. The first three songs present a sound akin to Alcest mixed with Amesoeurs, while the last two are possibly even more mellow than the sound from Souvenirs d’un Autre Monde. Each song stands well by itself, and a few are quite brilliant, but with only five real tracks the album also feels excruciatingly short. The two-part opener ‘Écailles de Lune’ and the third track ‘Percées de Lumière’ feel almost like a continuation of the raw emotion and atmosphere Neige helped to create on Amesoeurs’s Ruines Humaines EP. Neige’s characteristic use of delicate clean guitars and vocals contrasted with lush soundscapes and triumphant melodic songwriting is present as always, but the post-rock elements of the last album have been largely replaced by a sorrow-tinged black metal influence. Blackened screams do make a return on a couple of the songs, but only briefly. These three songs feel almost like a culmination of Neige’s style at this point, and ‘Percées de Lumière’ in particular sticks out for me as one of the better songs he’s ever written....full text |
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