NEWS +NOTES
Alcest
“I FELT THAT ALCEST MAGIC AGAIN, AND I KNEW I WAS BACK.” HOW NEIGE OVERCAME SOME SERIOUS WRITER’S BLOCK TO CREATE THE FEEL-GOOD SHOEGAZE-METAL ALBUM OF THE YEAR
By Jon Wiederhorn
“Alcest is a very spiritual, introverted type of music,” Neige says
GABOR TOTH
“I thought, ‘Okay, maybe I’ve lost it for good and I’m done with music because it doesn’t seem like I have anything left to say’”
FOR 13 LUCKY years, French ambient metal icon Stéphane “Neige” Paut regularly wrote otherworldly and emotionally resonant songs that enabled him to escape the often burdensome weight of daily life. Alcest’s frontman may have started his career playing black metal, but Neige always saw slivers of light in the darkness, and over the course of six albums Alcest evolved into a more winsome group that experimented with soundtrack music, post-rock and shoegaze.