Alcest – Shelter

January 17, 2014 • Prophecy Productions

I used to be really into Alcest and I still consider their debut to be one of my favorite albums, but over the years I've slowly been losing interest in the band. It's almost definitely due to their shift in sound over the years, from a pioneering atmospheric black metal band to the dream-pop-shoegaze sound they have now. Shelter is just another step on that road, and while I won't say they're bad at what they do, they definitely aren't nearly as interesting to me as they used to be.

This is certainly their lightest and softest work to date—if this were the first Alcest album a person heard, they'd probably have a hard time believing they used to be black metal at all, as any traces of it that were on their last two albums have finally vanished. Niege's clean, melodic vocals are still quite well-done, though, and veering more into some kind of ambient pop style with soft inflection and lots of layering (I might be hearing some female vocals in there as well). The jangly guitar lines have a bit more post-rock influence, with lots of texture and reverb; there are some decent lead melodies though. Overall, their style really doesn't sound that bad, for what it is.

But I'd be lying if I said I really enjoyed Shelter that much. It's not that I resent them switching styles—plenty of bands pull that off just fine—it's just that I'm not really a shoegaze guy at all. I was already pretty iffy about Les voyages de l'âme, and finally on this one there's simply nothing for me. I know it's still Alcest and it still sounds vaguely like Alcest, but it doesn't feel like them anymore. I guess I'm just not part of their target audience anymore.

And really, that's fine. They can make whatever music they want, really. I'm simply not really qualified to talk about it anymore, nor am I really interested. And that's just the way things go sometimes.