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Alcest: Les voyages de l'Âme
03/02/12 || Smalley
Since Gojira has satisfactorily proven that the cheese eatin’ surrender monkeys formerly known as “the French” can make good extreme metal, I guess Alcest has taken it upon themselves to be something like the beret-wearing answer to post-“Brave murder day” Katatonia; you know… relatively soft, melodic, “sensitive” metal. Not to imply you should expect a bunch of Katat cash-ins if you’re going into Alcest cold, they do have their own style, I’m just generalizing as always. And anyway, I certainly ain’t complaining about Alcest’s comparative softness; with “Les voyages de l’Ame”, they’ve taken an anchor of sound typically associated with metal, and successfully overlaid elements of shoegaze of all things (it sounds much less dumb than it reads) on top of it, resulting in something unique and just fucken… lovely? Hey, what the fuck is macho-posturing again?
Opener “Autre temps” takes us into Alcest’s not-so-metal kind of metal, with tentative strains of a soft, clean guitar, a subtle (but haunting) keyboarding behind that, and an echo effect over it all to give a sense of space. Things speed up and get more complicated after that, but not any heavier for a while due to frontman Neige’s gentle, sensitive vocals. It’s beautiful stuff, and remains that way even after the rougher rhythm guitar finally kicks in, as the tempo remains easy-going, and the mood relaxed. It definitely isn’t a song you’d headbang to at all, but if you want soothing, inspiring metal that never goes over-the-top with anything, Alcest is definitely hitting all the right notes here.
“Là où naissent les couleurs nouvelles” offers some good variety by switching up the riffing to have more of a harsher edge, as well as some faster parts, but the band still keeps pretty chill by contrasting the heavier parts with softer sections, featuring more of that wonderful clean guitar, keyboarding, and spoken-word laments in the language of love (and unshaven armpits). That’s not all Neige can do though, as he eventually goes for some more energetic, soaring notes, and some nice, black metal-esque growls, and drummer Winterhalter(top) even kind of blastbeats here! And the music still sounds soothing! Of course, it’s nice to hear a metal band that doesn’t try to be all about aggression, but I won’t turn down hearing some reminders of the heavier shit, especially when they’re integrated this well into Alcest’s overall sensibility.
The epically melancholic title track keeps things going strong from there, and the remainder of the album manages not to disappoint either, especially the triumphant drive on “Beings of light”. The thing I really like on here is how Alcest has managed to take the the steady, mid-tempo repetition and “grainy” guitar textures of certain post-metal bands, and satisfyingly blended that with the the soft vocals and etheral, dreamy mood of certain shoegaze acts. You got yer anchor of rhythm guitar on bottom to drive the songs forward and provide consistency, which are layered on top with “freer”, more loosely-structured clean vocals/lead guitar, which help to keep us engaged, and keep things from getting too sullen; it is a good number of layers to juggle, but they all come together somehow in the end. Oh, and like some shoegaze, due to the way Alcest creates the aural atmosphere here, the lines between some of the sound elements do get blurred and run together, but that still adds to the beautiful moods, so I’m not complaining about that at all, just notifying.
So, “Lez voyages de lame” is unique, entrancing metal that you could almost fall asleep to, and that’s not because it sounds like something from Suffocation (BURN!!!). While “voyages” is ultimately a bit too laid-back for me to really love, I still can’t deny that I got a pretty good kick out of it, relative lack of testosterone aside, so it comes as another lovely release in a (to-date) perfect discography. Keep on ribbitin’, ya buncha frogs.
- Information
- Released: 2012
- Label: Prophecy Productions
- Website: www.alcest-music.com
- Band
- Neige: vocals, guitars, bass, keyboards
- Winterhalter: drums
- Tracklist
- 01. Autre Temps
- 02. Là Où Naissent Les Couleurs Nouvelles
- 03. Les Voyages de L‘Âme
- 04. Nous Sommes L’Emeraude
- 05. Beings Of Light
- 06. Faiseurs de Mondes
- 07. Havens
- 08. Summer’s Glory
