ÉCAILLES DE LUNE

Alcest - Écailles de lune

Just sweet.

The best album written by the french musician Neige, who works in a lot of black metal and post-punk/rock/shoegaze projects, as Old Silver Key, Amoeseurs, Peste Noire, etc... Since I am very disappointed with Shelter (2014, too minimalist, non-catchy rhythmns, skippable tracks) and didn't found anything original as Écailles de Lune while listening to Les Voyages de Lame (2012, fine album, though), I came back to this one.

The shoegaze scene is currently very influential in some metal circles. The post rock/metal tag is growing like seaweed inside an abandoned bathroom. If you can't imagine a guy wearing corpse painting with a flying v in the middle of a bosk listening to My Bloody Valentine and Slowdive, you don't know nothing about the modern rock. A large amount of this bands are just hipster bullshet, in my honest opinion. But there are great musicians too, and a lot of them. The sound of Alcest is very next to Les Discrets, Soliness and Agalloch.

Écailles de Lune riffs are creative and fully inspired. Deep, it can make your soul feel the crying. The theme song is a suite divided into two pieces, almost crossing the line of 20 minutes. A progressive masterpiece. The first act feels like the sadness hands holding your heart. The use of chords are very melodic, and I found interesting the modal & harmonic beauty hidden behind it. The beautiful painting covering the album reflects exactly what I see in the music. The second part of Écailles de Lune uses the same shoegaze oriented chord progression, catchy and emanating feeling, but this time the drums achieves the faster level, making an unique experience of "floating" while listening to the track. The vocals now are harsh but not that aggressive monster growls, it's something like a dying goblin, which penetrates your soul and leaves you thinking about your own bleeding.

About the other four tracks. Percées de lumière is an alternative/post/shoegaze metal with black metal vocals, and believe me, those vocals increases the despair and deception mood of this track. Some clean melodic lines too. Abysses, the fourth track, is a short, and the only one written by Neige's single bandmate Fursy Teyssier. Solar Song is a trippy, melancholic shoegaze. And lasting 8 minutes, the last track: Sur l'océan couleur de fer, featuring the lyrics by Paul-Jean Toulet. This track starts slowly. And it ends in the same way. There's no flaw in this album. All great tracks. The last track is not so interesting as the others, but it's just the calm soundtrack to the ending credits, and it fits perfect when I heard the album as a whole.

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