Band:	Alcest
Album:	Écailles De Lune
Style:	Shoegaze, Atmospheric black metal
Release date:	March 29, 2010
A review by:	Lucas

01. Écailles De Lune - Part 1
02. Écailles De Lune - Part 2
03. Percées De Lumière
04. Abysses
05. Solar Song
06. Sur L'océan Couleur De Fer

Souvenirs D'Un Autre Monde was something quite new. Its combination of Black metal and Shoegaze, occasionally referred to as 'metalgaze', revealed that even metalheads occasionally dig warm, subtle music conceptually revolving around a wonderland or fairyland, where the bunnies hop through gently sloped meadows and spring is everlasting and more wonderfully jolly things. Who knows, maybe we're not as inevitably hell-bound as we think we are.

Écailles De Lune is inspired by the sea and revolves around a man that decides to leave this world for another one. Literally. Yey fairies. Neige opted for a slightly different focus in sound to match the new theme. Gone are the happy, overjoyed acoustics, in comes a more ethereal and heavenly sound. Écailles De Lune differs from its predecessor in that, where Souvenirs felt down-to-earth and "relaxing in the grass and under a warm summer sun"-human, Écailles is equally beautiful but much more angelic and thus, slightly less human. It's everything but a complaint, mind you.

Écailles De Lune is also much more diverse than Souvenirs. Whereas on Souvenirs Black metal merged with Shoegaze to a point where the Black metal was almost unrecognisable, Écailles contains a few truly dark Black metal passages. Neige proves he still has what it takes to pull off his high-pitched scream, alongside his soothing humming-like cleans. Both the shift in genre and the angelic attitude of modern day Alcest are perfectly illustrated in the track "Écailles De Lune (Part II)".

"Percées De Lumière" is the moment of transition in the storyline, and thereafter the mood changes considerably. "Abysses" is a gloomy ambient interlude, followed by "Solar Song" and "Sur L'Ocean Couleur De Fer" which get progressively more distant and hallow, until finally the last traces of, I don't know, 'Fairy Land' are gone. Lyrically cheesy, but musically, absolutely wonderful and captivating.

You might have to abandon the 'omg clean vox so ghey!' and 'br00tal metuhlz' motto's for a while in order to appreciate Écailles De Lune. Although the first half of the album might help the transition from regular metal to this, the latter part of the album might prove to be a little difficult. If you're no stranger to ethereal music, angelic atmospheres and other divine stuff, don't skip this one.