Review by Daniel for Alcest - Souvenirs d'un autre monde (2007)

*Stands up in front of his peers*

Daniel: “Hi everyone. My name is Daniel & I’m a kvlt elitist.”

*insert round of applause from his sympathetic peers*

Sometimes in life you just have to admit that you don’t know everything. You may have thought you did at one point but then the gift of hindsight comes back to emphatically show you that what you thought you categorically knew previously was misguided & delusional & that’s kinda how I feel about French blackgaze originators Alcest these days. You see, when I finally returned to the metal scene in 2009 after a decade of electronic music indulgence I felt that I had a lot of catching up to do so I threw myself head-first into every extreme metal-related release of significance from the years of my defection. Unfortunately though, my mind was still firmly playing by the rules of my late 80’s/mid 90’s hey day as I simply wasn’t open to some of the new & more adventurous sounds I was hearing. In my mind black metal needed to be insanely dark, relentlessly brutal & inherently Satanic so when I first heard Alcest’s take on the genre I headed straight over to one end of the polarization line & stood my ground militantly. I kidded myself that I was open-minded & that these new sounds simply didn't offer much of substance. Hell, I even dragged Ben along to see Alcest perform live on their 2011 tour in support of the re-recorded version of their "Le Secret" E.P. but still came away saying that they were boring & uninteresting with my arms folded & my best Quorthon impression etched on my face. Fast forward to 2022 & I can certainly still understand my prior position as I still prefer my black metal to be of the variety I’ve just described but I’ve also grown as a person with time, age & experience gifting me with a greater appreciation for a more diverse array of musical styles & the improved ability to be a able to judge a release on its own merits rather than what I’d like it to be. As a result, I’m coming into Alcest’s debut album with a completely new set of ears & it’s warmly rewarded me for it.

Unlike Alcest’s ground-breaking debut E.P. “Le Secret” which saw the blackgaze subgenre being thrust upon the world for the very first time, “Souvenirs d'un autre monde” is often claimed to be a more traditional shoegaze release with the post-metal tag also being used to describe it. I can see why people may want to go in that direction as these six tracks are completely devoid of shrieking black metal screams, instead seeing band leader Neige opting for a sweet, melodic, whispy, unintimidating & child-like clean approach that is very much in line with what you’d expect to hear on your average dream pop release. A couple of the tracks are more aligned with shoegaze from an instrumental perspective too with their jangly wall of guitar sound being performed at a more restrained tempo that summons rock a lot more than it does metal (see the title track & “Ciel errant”). Closer “Tir Nan Og” is the clear anomaly in the tracklisting as it steers well clear of rock or metal altogether & sounds more like Celtic new age music than anything else but the remainder of the album sees me being tempted to make the link to black metal strongly enough to result in me reluctantly placing “Souvenirs d'un autre monde” into the black metal bin alongside the Mayhems, Bathorys & Emperors. You see, although tracks like “Printemps émeraude”, “Les iris” & “Sur l'autre rive je t'attendrai” clearly draw inspiration from conventional shoegaze, the often tremolo-picked melodic guitar riffs simply feel far too closely aligned with the black metal atmosphere to deny. The use of fast, pseudo-blast beats on a couple of the tracks only strengthens that association & at the end of the album I can't help but feel that I’ve witnessed something that falls far too close to black metal for me to continue to deny it of its passage into the Metal Academy clan system. Where the association with post-metal comes from is more of a mystery though as, despite the use of the occasional atmospheric acoustic section, “Souvenirs d'un autre monde” is still very much a riff-based release & doesn’t rely on textured, slow-building & climactic post-rock structures.

Once I’d come to the surprising realisation that this album may actually have some link & resemblance to the extreme metal sounds I held so dear, the next step in my recovery from black metal elitism was to allow Alcest the opportunity to impress me as a piece of art & I’ll be damned if “Souvenirs d'un autre monde” isn’t a mighty fine record in its own right when you finally give it a chance after leaving your expectations at the door. The production job is bright & glistening, the cover art captures the atmosphere of the child-like innocence contained within wonderfully & the warm feeling of comfort the songs leave you with is endearing & self-reflective. None of that is anything I strive to achieve when streaming your average black metal release to my car stereo mind you but after finally giving in to Alcest’s world I have to ask myself why it has to be? Sure, I don’t regard any of these six tracks as raging metal classics that’ll stay with me in my Hall of Metal Glory for all eternity but to deny that I enjoy them any longer would not be representative of the place where my more expansive modern taste palate has transitioned to over time.

I have Xephyr’s The Infinite feature release submission of Alcest’s excellent 2016 fifth album “Kodama” from quite a few months ago now to thank for encouraging me to finally return back to the band’s earlier work which I’d previously dismissed. Perhaps I don’t enjoy “Souvenirs d'un autre monde” quite as much as I do that release which I feel falls outside of the scope of the metal spectrum altogether but there’s not all that much between the two & its opened the door for me to re-evaluate the rest of Alcest’s back catalogue with new ears too now. Can I see why “Souvenirs d'un autre monde” is the band’s most highly celebrated release? Yeah definitely. It’s got an accessibility that gives it a very broad range of appeal across a wide cross-section of music lovers. Is that a negative? It might frustrate a teenage me to hear me say it these days but the answer is not in the slightest.

For fans of Jesu, Lantlôs & Sun Devoured Earth.