Send "Alcest " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Pitchfork |
 According to its founder and, for years, its sole studio member, Neige, Alcest have almost always made extremely personal music. Though he founded the band in 1999 and issued four rough-and-raw black metal blasts two years later, he didn't properly debut Alcest until 2005, with the two-track, 27-minute EP Le Secret. After 2001's Tristesse Hivernale, he'd realized that direct black metal wouldn't allow him to communicate the intimacy of his ideas, so on Le Secret, a typhoon of blast beats and tremolo guitar essentially created a cocoon for his delicate French voice. Long passages of gentle drift-- birdcalls, operatic introductions, quietly galloping guitars-- surrounded those bits of fury.Those perpetually nested sounds were, it turns out, the musical manifestations of things Neige had seen in adolescent dreams: "Since my childhood, I've had the impression of being in contact with a luminous, far-off country. I have named it trivially 'Fairy Land,'" he explained in a 2006 interview. "My goal with Alcest is to transpose in musique my memories of this Fairy Land... beyond all terrestrial and real beauty." Neige recently re-recorded those early tracks with full-time Alcest drummer Winterhalter; Prophecy Productions combined the retakes with the original recordings, reissuing the long out-of-print work in five distinct editions. There are two versions of the vinyl LP, the standard jewel case CD, and a version of the disc encased in cloth and a heavy cardboard sleeve. For the Alcest obsessive, one version even puts the cloth-and-cardboard disc inside an engraved wooden box with a key, a handwritten lyrics sheet from Neige, a brooch, and a few ivy leaves, ostensibly plucked from the boughs of Fairy Land. Pressed in an edition of 500, that disc costs just less than $75....full text |
| Blistering |
| We’re not quite at the point where everything Alcest mainman Neige touches turns to gold, but he’s getting there. And bold moves like re-recording his debut 2005 Le Secret EP usually turns things into just that: gold. Being that the initial pressing is long out of print (but it easily snagged on any download site), the decision to re-record the EP’s two songs is easily justified, for Le Secret is the preamble to the brilliance that would ensue on 2007’s Souvenirs d'un autre monde. There are four songs in all here, two originals from 2005, and two re-recordings. Neige’s production values today are still grainy and organic, but when presented in this updated format, his shining guitar riffs, optimistic aura, and hypnotizing craftsmanship are more formable that before. “Le Secret” has a pointed black metal attack, paired with Neige’s soft clean vocals (sung in French), that traverses down the band’s now-revered path of brightness. “Elevation” does an even better job; capsizing with a flood of melodic and wide-open guitar riffs after the song turns out of its blast-happy beginning. Then when Neige drops in layers of clean vocals, it’s near-decadence....full text |
| Metalreview |
| This right here, folks – this is where it all began. If you’re one of the people who shudders at the notion of words like “delicate,” “nostalgia,” and “childhood” being associated with black metal, you can direct your disdain right towards this little two song EP. And if you count yourself as one of the ever-growing legions of people who embrace this new and unusual perspective on metal music, than Le Secret should be raised up on an altar in your house somewhere. Frenchman Neige's solo-project Alcest threw the metal world for a humongous loop with this EP’s original release in 2005, and many listeners are still deciding whether to embrace or reject what this style denotes. But whether or not you’re a fan of this new movement or not, there’s no doubt that this is some of the most influential twenty-seven minutes of music we’ve seen unleashed on the metal scene in the new millennium, as the explosion of similarly minded bands the world over can attest. And when listening to Le Secret, its hardly difficult to imagine why it had such a profound impact. In addition to the groundbreaking aesthetic formulated on these songs, the music itself is of exceptional quality, and to this day it remains Alcest’s strongest release by a mile. The notion of black metal conveying an atmosphere of wistfulness and serene nostalgia rubs some people the wrong way for a good reason, but these people are also missing the point of Le Secret entirely. Approaching this music as black metal isn’t just inaccurate, its ultimately an unnecessary hindrance to one’s enjoyment of the material at hand. Alcest hasn’t been a proper black metal project since its first demo, and while that genre is undeniably a huge influence on this release, structurally and sonically, its obvious that Neige was operating on an entirely separate conceptual wavelength, one that I wouldn’t even place in the metal spectrum despite the presence of blast beats, tremolo riffs, and harsh vocals. The fact that music can feature these elements so prominently while still not coming off as metal is impressive enough, but even more noteworthy is how Neige is able to propel the results of his vision beyond the realm of simple novelty into a truly memorable, moving piece of art. There are only tracks songs here, but each is over ten minutes in length and takes the listener through a variety of movements. Both songs are generally speedier and more “metallic” than the band’s first album, Souvenirs d'un Autre Mond, but Alcest’s trademark sense of shimmering beauty and heartfelt frailty is still fully established. The title track is an immediately engrossing piece with its mix of expansive tremolo melodies and lilting, ethereal vocals, but “Elevation” is where this EP really soars to incredible heights. Beginning with an utterly gorgeous instrumental keyboard intro before transitioning into a lengthy exchange of accessible, melodically strong riffage and distant, cavernous screams, this song resonates with an emotional intensity that is unquestionably reminiscent of traditional black metal while engaging an entirely different area of the imagination. It’s a bold proposition, to be sure, but the boldness isn’t the real selling point; its how successful Neige is in conjuring the kind of atmosphere he’s so often related to the concept of Alcest. You don’t have to appreciate or enjoy the sentiments that fuel this music, but its hard to criticize the strength of their realization on this release....full text |
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