The third ALCEST album, ‘Les Voyages De L'Âme’ (in English: the journeys of the soul), will be released worldwide on January 9th, 2012 (but North America where it comes out on January 31st, 2012) on Prophecy Productions. In the meantime, visit the label's YouTube Channel to hear the release in full, or patiently journey/scroll down through Neige's soul right here. ‘Les Voyages De L'Âme’, containing eight tracks and clocking at 50 minutes, can be bought/pre-ordered here. The album comes available as a CD, a digipak CD, and as limited Artbook CD/DVD. The album's cover was painted by Fursy Teyssier.
“ALCEST - that is music from another world, a world that is real, but that exists beyond ours and cannot be grasped by our senses. A world where all appearances - trees, glades, streams - emit a pearly light and where a faraway and celestial music fills the air like sweet perfume. A world inhabited by infinitely benevolent and protective beings of light, communicating in a wordless “language” directly from one soul to another. A world where the soul knows neither pain nor sickness nor sorrow, but is filled with a deep peace and an ineffable bliss. A world that lies “before” and “after”, “beside” and “behind” our world and the awareness of which stills mankind's fears of death. This world is no dream and no fantasy. Neige, the creative mind of ALCEST, knows it - he has experienced it and keeps memories of how it revealed itself to him in the form of esoteric experiences in his early life. ALCEST is his medium to come to terms with these memories and to share them with others,” [offers to clarify the press release]
First envisioned in 1999 by Neige (PESTE NOIRE, MORTIFERA, OLD SILVER KEY etc) as a solo project, the vision became a developed band for a short while as Hegnor and Arguth joined the campaign. The trio released a plain black metal demo entitled ‘Tristesse Hivernale’ through Drakkar Productions in 1999, after which ALCEST's founder, being left alone once again, immersed himself into “the otherworld” for the first time. An EP, ‘Le Secret’, was released in 2005 and eventually re-released by Prophecy Productions in 2011:
“No matter which version of ‘Le Secret’ you prefer, it remains a very special record, as it lays out in total the first aural manifesto that all the work of ALCEST to date was based upon, and shows just how far apart the unit is, in content and form, from other shoegaze metal acts. This is the door to a powerful, poetic, unsettling world of bliss that still challenges the sense of hearing even as it delights,” [commented Thom Jurek – more here (AllMusic)]
ALCEST's debut full-length, 2007's ‘Souvenirs d'un Autre Monde’ – described by Allmusic's Brian Way as “a monstrous, churning, epic guitar album - without a single guitar solo!” was met with much critical praise. A split EP with ANGMAR followed in 2007, with another split with LES DISCRETS being issued in 2009. Much anticipated second full-length, 2010's ‘Écailles de Lune’ was lovingly reviewed by Ned Raggett for Allmusic:
“The first half of the two-part title track that begins the album starts with a gentle guitar chime before the full skyscraping riff kicks in, but - instead of getting even more intense as it goes – it’s happy to turn even more elegantly beautiful, letting moments of strutting rock brawl feel more like exaltation than destruction. Neige's singing is some of his loveliest at many points throughout the album, a soft keen toward the middle of the second half of the title track, a low and contemplative rumination elsewhere - if not notably different from his earlier work in approach, it’s at its most enjoyable here, and perhaps at its most beautifully serene on ‘Solar Song’, vocals overlaid to lovely effect,” [read the rest here]
ALCEST features: Neige – guitars, bass, synths and vocals and Winterhalter – drums
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