Alcest - Écailles De Lune (2010) [Prophecy] // Grade: D

Le sigh. If you’ve ever wanted to listen to a black metal Sigur Rós, now’s your chance! The Frenchie ‘metal’ act Alcest is back with yet another shoegaze metal album. Since a lot of people haven’t heard of Alcest, for good reason, here’s a little background on this once mediocre band. Alcest began in Bagnols-sur-Cèze, France back in 2000. Now for those of you who were into black metal, especially the more ambient-influenced bands in 2000, you’ll recall a huge upheaval in the genre. All the ‘pure’ bands were getting bored with blast beats and blood and moved on to experimental sounds. Burzum had been sitting on Dauði Baldrs for a few years and had released Hliðskjálf a year before. Much to the dismay of the die-hard fanbase. Bands like Wolves in the Throne Room hadn’t made it to the scene and so the black metal crowd was left with some mediocre atmospheric music and some over-the-top albums like Gorgoroth’s Incipit Sathanas were making everyone yawn.

The scene was in a weird place and in that time, many acts, like Alcest were planting their feet and prepping for recording an album, or at least an EP. Fast forward to 2005, Aegnor and Argoth left the band, leaving Neige to release Le Secret which was welcomed with critique on both sides. Some called it an album filled with a “sinister mood” and others mistook the lead vocalist Neige as a woman due to his vocal stylings. All critique aside, it’s fairly easy to say that Le Secret marked a new direction for black metal. One that fused shoegaze ambiance with the cold and dark overtones of black metal. By mixing atmospheric moments with the intenisity of black metal, Neige patted himself on the back and continued to make more albums. Later, in 2007 he released Souvenirs d’un Autre Monde and now in 2010 comes Écailles De Lune.

Now, I actually thought the Wolves in the Throne room album Black Cascade was pretty good. Sure, it had its pitfalls but overall, I was impressed. To use Black Cascade as a benchmark to judge other albums to come in the sub-genre might be a bit catty but in instances like this, it’s fitting. Écailles De Lune is, in many ways, a failed attempt at creating an environment. Neige’s compositions are vapid. There’s no life or meaning in any of this shit. The two-part title track “Écailles de Lune” drones on for almost 20 minutes, leaving the listener inclined to just turn the album off. After sitting through that borefest, we get to experience “Percées de Lumière”, a mediocre-at-best attempt as some “epicness”. Somewhere after falling into “Abysses”, we have to sit through some fairytale bullshit entitled “Solar Song” where Neige lays in a corner and strokes his prick while he plays around on a keyboard. Enter “Sur l’Océan Couleur de fer”, the final nail in this coffin. I couldn’t even listen to the whole thing.

I’m sure I’ll come under fire for bashing this pathetic excuse for a metal album but if there’s one thing I cannot listen to is self-congratulatory French garbage. I wish Blut Aus Nord would go over to Neige’s house and teach him a thing or two about making good music. Seriously. Écailles De Lune is one of those releases that I would not recommend to anyone and it took me a lot of restraint from bashing it even more. All I can say is that there are countless other examples of when “shoegazy” black metal is done well and this is not one of them. This is metal for family members of yours with heart problems and/or castrations.

- Prolly