Since the inception of Alcest a decade ago, the band has been riding a wave of artists who straddle the divide between the atmospheric blur of shoegaze and the primal aggression of heavy metal. So-called “metalgaze” likely would have been inconceivable as each respective genre defined itself during its nascent years, a time in which mopey, black-clad My Bloody Valentine fans likely considering themselves a world apart from mopey, black-clad Mayhem fans (and vice versa). However, more recently a handful of artists have been creating music under the precept that the two genres share a wall-of-noise aesthetic which is more unitary than divisive. While bands like Jesu and the Angelic Process utilize a heavier approach more allied with doom metal, Alcest was among the first to devise a shoegaze-black metal hybrid.
Since the inception of Alcest a decade ago, the band has been riding a wave of artists who straddle the divide between the atmospheric blur of shoegaze and the primal aggression of heavy metal. So-called “metalgaze” likely would have been inconceivable as each respective genre defined itself during its nascent years, a time in which mopey, black-clad My Bloody Valentine fans likely considering themselves a world apart from mopey, black-clad Mayhem fans (and vice versa). However, more recently a handful of artists have been creating music under the precept that the two genres share a wall-of-noise aesthetic which is more unitary than divisive. While bands like Jesu and the Angelic Process utilize a heavier approach more allied with doom metal, Alcest was among the first to devise a shoegaze-black metal hybrid.
While Alcest’s previous efforts were decent, they often fell prey to an over-reliance on a single idea: Slowdive-esque vocal and guitar melodies over the accelerated rush of black metal. No more, no less. The results were pleasant, but seemed reductionist, as if each style could be distilled into one or two essential characteristics – an approach which sells short both the individual characteristics and any combination thereof. With their most recent release, however, there is a more nuanced incorporation of each respective genre, which, in paying better tribute to each facet of their sound, greatly improves the quality and consistency of the album overall.
The album’s title track exemplifies this evolution: Cocteau Twins-style ambient drift gives way to more driving sections which call to mind equal parts Ulver and M83 before launching into a breakneck coda more heavily aligned with the metallic end of Alcest’s pool of influences. The vocals are somewhat more defined than on previous albums, but still utilize a similar approach – overlayed in quasi-choral harmony and then swathed in cavernous reverb, a hazy sheen of melody atop the wall of guitar. But even this approach is varied, with the vocals on songs like “Percèes de Lumiére” alternating between a raspy scream and a gentler harmonized croon in much the same manner as the album’s general conflation of seemingly opposing influences.
Most metal fans will likely hate this album. A better soundtrack for a daydream than a fistfight, it successfully strips away all but the faintest traces of the genre’s aggression and brutality in favor of a subtle melodicism which is both elegant and (gasp) accessible. Similarly, many people more into shoegaze bands will likely be turned off by the album’s occasional indulgence in black metal tropes. Ultimately, any artist who draws from such disparate pools of influence risks alienating those more strongly adhered to either extreme. For a listener willing to forgo genre purism, however, Alcest has concocted a well-balanced blend of the delicate and the abrasive, one that side-steps questions of stylistic uniformity in favor of a hybrid which is very much their own.
