ALCEST — Les Voyages de L'âme (review)

ALCEST — Les Voyages de L'âme album cover Album · 2012 · Atmospheric Black Metal Buy this album from MMA partners
3.5/5 ·
Phonebook Eater
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.
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