That ALCEST have their roots in the black metal scene quite surprises when listening to Souvenirs d’un autre monde. This record deals with many styles but regarding metal one will find just elementary particles. Other influences are way more obvious, beginning with melancholic wave bands of the 80’s like This Mortal Coil, Slowdive – latter ones get mentioned on the ludicrous info sheet (I tell you more of it at the end), the excellent but almost forgotten Felt, up to current post rock merchants a lá Mogwai and Godspeed! You Black Emperor, but without their soft spot for letting end their distinct guitar walls in cacophony. ALCEST in fact maul their guitars now and then with a heavier attitude but never pass the threshold of pain, they not even reach it. No need for. Because, multi-instrumentalist and singer Neige, who single-handedly recorded Souvenirs d’un autre monde, has a keen and wonderful sense for sophisticated and well-balanced melodies and tensions. They get stuck in your ears, and heart, without confusing your stomach with too much of mawkishness.
So, this almost 45 minutes running album is a real pleasure, preferred to be listened to under a warm evening’s sky, even more preferred with someone or something beloved by your side.
There is no downer on Souvenirs d’un autre monde. If there is anything to nag about then maybe that the one or the other song is too hymn-like (Les Iris) and the Souvenirs’ mood too much in one pour. But that’s nitpicking facing a princess…
Arguably nag I want about the gruesome press info. It is difficult to get it out of mind if you do not want to pull a well-done work to pieces. Either the responsible editor was stoned till the tips of hair or he/she used the worst translation engine ever found on the internet.
Believe it or not but they really say following: “With the application of Slowdive and Yann Tiersen to Burzum (probably 3-times a day. But how? Oral, rectal or as an ointment?) multi-instrumentalist Neige has developed himself a musical concept that is actually not less than revolutionary (but only if you cut out the 80’s from the last century) and with its concrete realization on Souvenirs d’un autre monde it can be labeled as unprecedented and trend-setting.”
Unprecedented? Hardly ever. Trend-setting? Ok, in giving direction to the sunrise/sundown at full tilt. Willingly. At the end another faux pas: the album title gets not wrongly but one-sided translated as “Souvenirs from another world”. That the alternative “Memories of another world” is more obvious was kept secret. A world, where the dead can dance, where Cocteau’s twins look deep in each others eyes in the house of love and even the trees sing: „Gone but not forgotten…“ We gladly think of and enjoy ALCEST’s soundtrack to it. What happens to the info sheet… is left to your filthy fantasies.