Send "Alcest " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Sputnikmusic |
 If Écailles de Lune was anything to go by, Neige and his band Alcest were ready to hit the ground running when it came time to record the follow up to what was easily the most appealing combination of black metal and shoegaze to grace the ears of listeners in what seemed like ages. It’s not like Alcest to release the same album twice, though, so it comes as no surprise that Les Voyages De L'Âme differs as much from Écailles de Lune as that album had from Neige’s debut Souvenirs D'un Autre Monde. If anything, Neige has become bolder in his style, not so much concerned with pleasing fans and swaying naysayers as he is writing what he feels – an attitude that has a direct impact on how different Les Voyages De L'Âme turned out to be. If Écailles de Lune showed the harsher side of Alcest and Souvenirs D'un Autre Monde was more whimsical, Les Voyages De L'Âme ends up leaning toward the latter, but unlike the 2007 debut the album does not remain so one-sided.If black metal and shoegaze weren’t a volatile enough combination, Alcest incorporate a healthy helping of the “post” realm into Les Voyages De L'Âme to have its effects heard. The compositions are winding, dissonant affairs that aren’t as intent on structure as they are on atmosphere. Whereas the more orthodox opener “Autre Temps” provides us with a layout that is easy to swallow, tracks like “Summer’s Glory” are open-ended and go wherever they please. This isn’t necessarily something to complain about, especially when it is clear that Neige knows what he wants to do, but unfortunately for him that isn’t always the case. Things sometimes drag mercilessly, especially in the latter half of the record, and the stylistic changes are so minute that things become as dull as a multitude of bright paints smeared into a gray paste on the same swath of canvas – there simply isn’t any vibrancy to it. It is relieving, then, to note that the entire album doesn’t suffer this same fate. “La Où Naissent Les Couleurs Nouvelles”, while being the longest song on the album also displays in full force what Neige is out to do: craft music that incorporates the best of several worlds as it straddles the boundaries of multiple genres. High-pitched shrieks and airy, flowing French singing clash over clean and distortion guitar in a way that invokes a kind of beauty of opposites as each shade collides with another....full text |
| Angrymetalguy |
| Every once in a while the scene gets a hair up its ass and decides that something that is explicitly not metal is totally OK to love. So, in the 90s, when I was first cutting my teeth on the extreme metal scene, Anathema and Katatonia were both giving up their extreme pasts and putting out records that were much more akin to sort of depressing alt rock than anything they’d previously been doing. Then there’s black metal guys’ love of swirly keyboard soundscapes (such that it ends up on Metal Archives, despite them actually banning other bands that I—and most others—would consider metal). Well, since the release of Amesoeurs really broke this sound in 2009, this sort of post-black metal shoegaze stuff has becomes the scene’s favorite non-metal thing. And, really, the description of it by one reviewer I read really sums it up: “Black metal that pisses off the indie kids and indie rock that pisses off the black metal kids. Brilliant.” However, post-split (the split record, not that they were the same band) with Les Discrets, the Alcest production has been somewhat hit and miss. The first half of Écailles de Lune was brilliant, but the record sort of regressed as it went on, leaving new listeners and fans alike to wish that the album had really just been a 3 track EP. So, in early 2012 with the introduction of Alcest‘s newest piece of work Les Voyages De L’Âme, there were definitely concerns as to whether Alcest could live up to the gigantic expectations that everyone has for them. Because, really, given how ostensibly not metal these guys are—they sure do get a lot of love from the scene. Contrary to what the haters would tell you, generally such expectations are not unwarranted—and such is the case with Alcest....full text |
| Thequietus |
| When Alcest's debut LP Souvenirs d'un Autre Monde dropped in 2007, no one in the metal world had heard anything quite like it. Neige, then the French band's only member, had the audacity to stand with one foot firmly in the perceived hipster mecca of shoegaze and the other somewhere on the hillside from the cover of Burzum's Filosofem. The album sent shockwaves through its ostensible genre that culminated in the inane (and still active) debate over what it means to be black metal and whether positivist philosophy and tremolo picking can peaceably coexist. Two albums and five years later, Alcest are a fixture in the international black metal scene. Neige, full-time drummer Winterhalter, and session members Zero and Fursy Teyssier have toured the world twice and are about to embark on a third trip. 2009's Écailles de Lune was heralded as a crossover masterpiece, beardy dudes bring their non-hesher girlfriends to Alcest shows, members of the corpse-painting community remain outraged, and all is as it is meant to be. The freshness that initially made Neige's most personal project relevant has all dried up. The release of Les Voyages de L'Âme forces us to decide if Alcest music is good even when they're no longer interesting. By the first appearance of vocals on album opener 'Autre Temps', it's evident that it is. What follows is 50 minutes of shimmering, gorgeous black metal that is, if not as important as Souvenirs d'un Autre Monde or Écailles de Lune, is just as excellent. Located sonically somewhere on the spectrum between their two previous full-lengths, it's the band's most mature work to date and perhaps the only one that feels like a true album, with a logic to its sequencing reflected in a true beginning, middle and end. Closing track 'Summer's Glory' manages to feel like a catharsis even after an album that mostly feels good....full text |
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