Alcest - Les voyages de l'âme (2012)

As architects of blackgaze—an unlikely fusion of stoic, clamorous black-metal and balmy, expressionistic shoegaze—Alcest are masters of finding harmony between darkness and light. On their previous two albums, 2019's crackling Spiritual Instinct and 2016's Kodama, the Paris-based duo were drawn to explore the stormier side of their sound—particularly on the former, which contained some of their heaviest material to date. Five years onward, the duo—songwriter-vocalist Neige and drummer Winterhalter—have returned with Les Chants De L'Aurore, which translates to "The Songs of Dawn." Fittingly, the record is a bold manifestation of their most hopeful musical ideas yet, beckoning back in sound and tenor to Alcest's first two albums, the 2007 genre-defining blackgaze gem, Souvenirs d'un autre monde, and its equally resplendent follow-up, 2010's Écailles de lune.

Neige wanted Les Chants to be "the most uplifting music I can possibly make," he told Kerrang!, and he succeeded. While there are plenty of Alcest's customarily scathing parts (the middle passage of "Améthyste" is a roaring romp), so much of Les Chants is downright sanguine. Alcest invited several uncredited guests to sing on the record, including the children of a longtime friend of Neige's, who likely provide the chirping "hey!"s that pierce through the main riff on opener "Komorebi." It's a disarming and chipper moment even for Alcest, whose music has always been serenely beautiful, yet still doused in melancholy. The first scream on Les Chants doesn't appear until six minutes into the proggy, orchestral "L'envol," and even the black-metal double-kicks in "Améthyste" are more buoyant than they are bludgeoning.

Alcest proved themselves more than capable of going dark and doomy on Spiritual Instinct, and here, they sound just as refreshed and confident doing the opposite. The dulcet shakers that buttress the gigantic synths and grandiose guitar chords of "L'Enfant de la Lune"? Like the prettiest sunrise you've ever seen.