If my wife was ever tasked with inventing a black metal band she’d like, I have a feeling she’d conjure up something that sounds a lot like Alcest on account of Alcest sounding more and more like a shoegaze band than a black metal one. Indeed, Mr. Alcest himself, vocalist/guitarist/keyboardist/bassist Neige, has built his French band into a crystal tower with celestial reach, a golden, opulent artifact that stands warm and bright in an otherwise dark and cold world. That’s not to say, however, that Les voyages de l’âme (or, if you prefer, Journey of the Heart), is one big dreamy wash of lush sound because it so happens that it stands on a very strong foundation of aggressive folk metal, but Neige’s preference for the soft, clean vocals over the growls (skip straight to “Là où naissent les couleurs nouvelles” or “Faiseurs de mondes” if you want to hear the latter) certainly elevates the album to ethereal heights. Much like 2010′s Écailles de lune, Les voyages de l’âme magically weaves intricate and ambient guitar work with blasting tempos for an altogether fantastical marriage of romance and war, its beauty found in its strength, its strength found in its beauty.
Check out the video for “Autre temps” from Les voyages de l’âme!
Grails Black Tar Prophecies Vol. 4
Important Records
Apparently not satisfied with there being only three Black Tar volumes, Grails returns with everyone’s preferred volume of choice, number four. An avant-garde instrumental band practicing a hybrid form of psychedelic indie zen, Grails (featuring, most notably, Emil Amos of Om and Holy Sons) occupy a lyric-less expanse that exists somewhere between Steven Wilson’s Tarquin’s Seaweed Farm days and a side stage at Bonnaroo. The five songs on Vol. 4 take you on a quick but impressionable ride through the subconscious via electronic post-rock drone (“I Want a New Drug” and “New Drug II)” and dark, dreamy holistic jazz rock (“Self-Hypnosis,” “A Mansion Has Many Rooms,” and “Up All Night”), and while 22 minutes might not seem like a sufficient amount of time to get your full meditation on, it appears that Vol. 5 isn’t be far behind. So, as is always the case with Grails, there’s plenty in which to take solace.
If this, Dragontears’ third album, is indeed their final one (as it has been reported to be), they’re going out in a phosphorescent blaze of acid rock glory. Part Danish drug-speak, part freak machine electricity, Dragontears has allowed Lorenzo Woodrose — with help from his friends from On Trial — to open his third eye real wide and stretch the psychedelic sounds of Baby Woodrose into a strange, dreamy trip through a field of toadstools. Like its predecessors, Turn On Tune In Fuck Off!! is just six songs long and kicks things off in fuzzy fashion with “Two Tongue Talk,” and “No Salvation,” then follows with the mega-mellow “My Friend,” the most Baby-sounding song on deck. The second half of the album is decidedly more far-out than the first half, with “Time of No Time” leading us deep into the cosmos and dropping us into the void that is “William,” the album’s obligatory opus, a big spoonful of thick cough syrup that drones on in a red haze for over 13 minutes before melting into “Mennesketvilling,” which wraps us in the same foreign-tongued intonations. A good album to end the short-lived Dragontears era, but you know, as long as Baby Woodrose is still around, we’re not really going to miss them all that much. They sure were a fun-fried diversion, though.
Listen to “My Friend” from Turn On Tune In Fuck Off!!
Alcest
Grails
Dragontears