LES VOYAGES DE L'ÂME

'Les Voyages De L'Âme' - Alcest (7/10)

For a genre of music which is infamous for often basing its content on male bravado, gore, misanthropy and depression, it takes some serious balls to be a metal band that looks to fairy tales and uplifting emotion in their music. Alcest may have once been a typical black metal band a decade or so ago, but this project has since dissolved their ties to a dark sound, now gravitating towards an atmospheric mix of post metal and shoegaze. Led by frontman Neige, Alcest's sound culminated in 2010 with the masterpiece 'Ecailles De Lune', an album which ranked as my unlikely favourite of that year. Although I rushed to the opportunity of hearing a sample from this follow-up to 'Ecailles' about a month ago, the song 'Autre Temps' had me worried that Alcest had now fallen into a strict formula for their music, and that I could not hope to be surprised by the band any longer. Although 'Les Voyages De L'Âme' is a worthy follow-up to my favourite album of 2010, my fears are sadly confirmed; Alcest's third record feels like a reprise of ideas and sounds from their past. While 'Souvenirs D'Un Autre Monde' and 'Ecailles De Lune' took their listeners to two separate- albeit similar- realms of fantasy, 'Les Voyages De L'Âme' is a nostalgic return to the second.

People will cry the familiar 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it' rationelle, but I think 'Les Voyages De L'Âme' might have felt more otherworldly and atmospheric if it didn't sound so damned familiar from the first listen onward. Alcest's music is full of vast reverb, emotionally stirring guitars, and the presence of seemingly out-of-place drum blastbeats; an homage to the time when Alcest was a straight-up black metal act. Neige's voice is the most distinctive sound of the band, a soft clean vocal that often wanders about the higher register rather loosely. There are also black metal shrieks, but there are even less of those this time around than on 'Ecailles'. With a conventionally beautiful sound that is instantly pleasant to the ear, Alcest will attract listeners who don't usually like metal. The black metal elements are scarce, but they are there, and it makes them a perfect potential gateway to heavier, darker sounds. Although Alcest have spawned a legion of clones, their sound remains individual and unique. Even at the most intense moments of 'Les Voyages De L'Âme', things never feel dark; there is always a soaring melody to keep the listener planted firmly in the light.

'Les Voyages De L'Âme' is a move for Alcest that reminds me much of what Wolves In The Throne Room did with their last album 'Celestial Lineage'. Instead of experimenting with something new, they chose to further develop the ideas of their best work and see where it went. For Wolves In The Throne Room, that album of inspiration was 'Two Hunters'. In Alcest's case, 'Ecailles De Lune' is the most obvious palette from which Neige draws his brush. 'Les Voyages De L'Âme' is a sequel in every sense of the word; a slightly different angle of what is essentially the same thing. In terms of differences, 'Les Voyages De L'Âme' is more optimistic than the often melancholic 'Ecailles'. The listener is meant to feel light and hopeful the entire time through. Although this album achieves that feeling in me, there is nothing else in the music to contrast it; no conflict, no tension. As a result, 'Les Voyages De L'Âme' does not have that same lasting emotional impact that 'Ecailles De Lune' was graced with, despite being nearly as successful in terms of its musicianship and composition.

'Les Voyages De L'Âme' will always be compared to its predecessor, and in the end, I think it will be 'Ecailles' that enjoys the status of a 'classic'. This album has all of the traits that have made Alcest great in the past, and 'Les Voyages De L'Âme' is good, but there isn't much here to set the album apart as an independent work. My insistent complaints aside, this is a great way to star the year.

7/10

"Le Voyages De L'Ame", despite being too similar to it's predecessor, is a wonderful experience of unearthly, fairytale-like atmospheres.

This project has wowed Metal fans and many others since the 2007 release "Souvenirs D'un Autre Monde", and gained even more popularity with the beautiful "Ecailles De Lune"; There was the strong suspicion among the hype surrounding "Le Voyages De L'Ame" that it was going to be too similar to the previous albums, without breaking new boundaries or bringing Alcest to a even higher level. These predictions ended up being true, sadly: but even though it's not as brave as it should have been, it miraculously a la par with "Ecailles De Lune" in terms of quality.

What Alcest does in music is something that could either turn off some Black Metal fans or turn on even haters of that genre: the band tries to be as accessible as possible with their wonderfully dreamy, shoegazey guitars and reverie-like clean vocals, but also to be faithful to the harsh side of music with intense BM shrieking and abrasive sound. The production and overall sound as always is purposely a little rough, without it being stellar nor crystal clear, so that it accentuates the vividness of a more concrete, earthly, human daydream, instead of an unearthly, divine vision. There has always been pain and suffering in Alcest's music, something that shows up even here in "Le Voyages De L'Ame", a more fairytale inspired interpretation of beauty. The songs are a little more unearthly sounding, more surreal, more in the clouds than down to earth. Strictly musically speaking however there isn't much change nor variation, so that it feels like a simple repeat to "Ecailles De Lune".

Some songs here seem though to be even better than the ones we've heard from previous releases: "Autre Temps" is possibly the best Alcest track so far, incredibly touching, beautiful, and full of emotion. However, this song seems to not be coherent to the paradisal atmospheres of the other songs here: "Beings Of Light" is one of the best examples, that uses repetition in order to accentuate the state of reverie Alcest has been aiming for: but there are also the Black Metal moments, which admittedly are only a few, but always very intense, especially thanks to the shrieking vocals, but the guitars give also a credible touch of harsh.

Even if "Le Voyages De L'Ame" is a little too similar to "Ecailles de Lune", it is a wonderful experience and another great album by Alcest, one that could turn on new fans pretty easily, for it's great accessibility and overall dreamy delivery.

I know nothing. This is given especially with regard to Alcest. The previous album was of such quality that I decided to get this one.

Somebody help me, this is a fine ride!

For a change, let's get the complaints out of the way first. The singer should scream at the top of his lungs a bit more, though I do enjoy the more caressing vocals as well. The production is better than the last one but only barely, because there still is no bottom end.

That said, at my age I should not be listening to this kind of music at all. I'm the wrong demographic. That their sound can resound throughout the ages, which it does, should give everyone a clue. And I don't even understand French. This kind of stuff is universal. We needn't know the lyrics when the music is right on, when the music assumes the correct forms and draws us in like moths to the candle. That's what Alcest does. And they do it so well on this album.

We understand the guitar motifs in their guises. We understand the choir-like vocals. We understand the infuences, whether it be The Wipers or Neil Young. We absolutely understand that universal stuff, which in this case occasionally drops us to our knees and makes us weep like babies.

LIsten to Autre Temps. The soothing intro with its chiming guitar. You are amongst friends. All is well. Then a wall of guitars appears. Is it not all the better? I enjoy long pieces of music, pieces that reveal themselves to me in stages, A reverberating guitar there, a plaintive vocal there, a wall of sound here. It's the here that I hear HERE. I love a metal-ish racket as much as anyone, and I always appreciate it when done with the utmost care.

Summer's Glory is the final track here. It's perhaps the best, certainly not musically, but in some ways well.... It recalls that Summer of '67, and maybe a little Guns N Roses, maybe intentionally, maybe not. If I knew I'd tell you. But it sure sounds to me like a band paying some homage to those that came before, those whose wagons dug the ruts at no small expense. And it sounds like a band who is happy to follow in those ruts, and in fact maybe dig a few new ones as long as they are heading down that road.

What the hell, this is a great album.

Alcest's third album finds the band treading water, showing little musical progress over their previous two releases and indicative of a backslide into producing albums and songs by rote formula. The mingling of post-rock and shoegaze guitar textures on here (with the black metal aspects once again scaled back) offers more or less nothing except pale imitations of musical passages already adequately performed on the first two albums, and on the whole there's no captivating, standout moments to elevate this above the status of pleasant but forgettable background music. Neige's skills as a producer and a multi-instrumentalist haven't waned, but in terms of compositions he seems to be in a creative rut this time around.