Album Review: Alcest - Shelter

Alcest
Shelter
Rating: Yeah Daddy Make Me Want It

French metal band Alcest has quietly made the transition from its ambient metal beginnings into pure shoegaze. On 2010’s Écailles de Lune, the tension between explosive metal riffs and more textural, atmospheric washes of guitar led to their most gripping work, and heralded the discovery of other bands influenced by shoegaze such as Deafheaven. Alcest's latest record Shelter continues their path away from aggressive metal, eschewing chugging riffs for ethereal beauty and grace. Taking Slowdive's Just For A Day as a touchpoint, Shelter is a gorgeous, shimmering record full of soaring guitars, swooning vocals, and epic synth washes that is never less than intoxicating, however, losing the push and pull between the harsh and beautiful tends to take away from what made records such as Écailles de Lune so bracing.

Honestly, though, it is hard to find much fault with Shelter as a whole considering the sheer beauty of the tracks collected here. After a brief, ambient opening, the record soars into the clouds with the chiming "Opale," a rousing track where the interplay between the guitars and sweeping synths is almost perfection.



"La Nuit Marce Avec Moi" is perhaps one of the most gorgeous tracks Alcest has ever created, the warm washes of sound enveloping you in a comforting cocoon.



And if anyone calls into question Alcest's shoegaze bona fides, you only have to turn to "Away," which grabs Slowdive's Neil Halstead on vocals.



While the album floats along on its beautiful shoegaze course, it is not until the final 10+ minute track "Delivrance" where things get a little more tension-filled, as the track builds and builds into a Sigur Rós-ian epic swoon-fest.



Shelter is a record that I put on a lot to get caught up in its warm, inviting bath and I am never disappointed when I have it on. It is not a record that I turn to, however, for its forward thinking qualities. There is nothing here that makes it essential listening. Removing any traces of their metal past has made Alcest merely another shoegaze act, though a very good one.

Rating Scale:

Chilfos: masterpiece; coolest thing I've heard in ages.

Woof Daddy: excellent; just a hair away from being a masterpiece.

Grrrr: very good; will definitely be considered for my top releases of the year.

Yeah Daddy Make Me Want It: good; definitely invites further listens and piques one's interest for more material.

Meh: not horrible, but certainly not great; could have either been polished, trimmed, or re-thought.

Jeez Lady: what the hell happened? Just plain bad. They should hang their heads in shame and be forced to listen to Lady Gaga ad nauseam as penance.

Tragicistani: so bad, armed villagers with pitchforks and torches should run the artist out of the country for inflicting this abomination on the human race.