- Although French black metal band Alcest started out making suitably cold, abrasive music, it didn’t take long before dreamier soundscapes entered the picture. The result was an apparent contradiction, black metal dappled with sunlight and a sense of wonder – and it worked.
A couple of albums ago, they jettisoned metal altogether – 2014’s Shelter was where bandleader Neige surrendered completely to his love for Slowdive, and lush, chiming rock was the result with not a scream or crushing riff to be found.
2016 follow-up Kodama saw the extreme metal tendencies sneaking back, and they are even more evident on new album Spiritual Instinct. Their latest is thematically different from its predecessor; Kodama was inspired by Japanese art and culture, while Spiritual Instinct is more a gnostic quest into spirituality and the self.
Sonically, however, the two records are almost companion pieces – expertly-handled blends of atmospheric shoegaze with the curdled heaviness of black metal. This new record is the superior album though, with a better, less claustrophobic production and the extreme metal sections are far less tentative than last time.
Also, the style Alcest pioneered has been appropriated by scores of artists, but none of them have been as successful at this sound as the pioneers themselves. Spiritual Instinct comprises six songs ranging in length from five to nine minutes - leisurely, sonically dense tunes all with enough ambition to take the attentive listener on a powerful and emotional journey. The closest approximation of their gentle, cascading side is Le Miroir with chiming guitar notes that sound like water illuminated by sunlight. The real meat of the album, however, can be found in the likes of Protection, with its powerful combination of shoegaze and heaviness.
Throughout the record, the songs undergo tonal shifts from atmospherics to blast beats and back again. Neige’s vocals range from his high, ethereal murmur to blackened shrieks, but the voice is swathed in echo so whether he’s sighing or screaming, there’s always a haunting, dreamlike undercurrent to the songs. Likewise, the music goes between similar extremes, but performed so well, the stylistic differences never disorientate – the heavy bits are still atmospheric, while the shoegazey bits are performed with enough muscularity so that the metal doesn’t sound tacked on. Also, Winterhalter’s drums have never sounded better.
While Alcest may need to expand their sound a little on future releases to avoid repetition, that isn't the case for Spiritual Instinct. It has arrived at just the right time and may well be their best album to date.
- Matt Thrower.