Review:

on 2011-02-20 CharlesMartel Said:

Neige is back with a new album and a new project. His 2007 album, under the name of Alcest, was a stunning album which alternately shocked and surprised many. Neige departed from his hitherto predominant black metal credentials to produce what was probably the definitive nu-gaze album of the decade. Now, with Amesoeurs (which roughly translates as Soul Sisters) he has moved both a step further on and a step backwards with regard to black metal.

Neige has co-opted others for this project, most notably Audrey Sylvain, whose occasionally haunting vocal style enhances the often dreamlike effect of the music. But it is with the music that I must begin. For someone who is barely out of his teens, Neige can sure make his way around a guitar. However, not only does he play guitar on this, he also weighs in with drums, synthesizer and bass, leaving Sylvain, and the two other members co-opted for the project, Fursy Teyssier and Winhterhalter, to pick up the remaining instrumentation with additional instruments and overdubs. Having said that, there is something in me which suspects that those latter two musicians are in fact simply alter egos of Neige who may be rather unwilling to take all the musical credits for the album.

However, what strikes you first and foremost about the music is the strength of the melodies. Almost every track on the album is built on a strong melodic foundation, which slows and accelerates as the mood takes it. The guitars are clear and crisp and this allows for a variety of styles to blossom out taking you on a musical journey across music of the last twenty five years without ever giving you the impression that you have strayed far from the present. The more you listen the more you pick up: post-punk, jangle pop, dream pop, shoegaze, post-rock and black metal  all are brought into the picture. Not once do any of them seem out of place. And not once does the melody let you down.

This comes as a refreshing change, I have to say. All too often in the last few years I have listened to trendy indie hipster bands touted as the next best thing only to find that I am assailed with weak melodies barely a few steps above incessant droning; poor instrumentation; distorted guitars which seem to be that way to cover up for either a lack of talent, lack of originality or both; all wrapped up in barely decipherable vocal structures which, when analysed, have nothing at all to say and pretty much nothing worth listening to. I could rattle off the names of half a dozen such bands without even thinking about it. But here is neither the time nor the place.

Neige makes a bold start with a haunting instrumental track, Gas in Veins, which mixes stark post-punk style guitars with black metal musical structures. Starting any album with an instrumental is always a brave thing, but the album immediately steps up a gear with the albums best track, Les Ruches Malades. This not only encompasses all the diverse musical influences on offer throughout the album, but adds in the dream-like vocal of Sylvain. If you were expecting black metal this must come as a shock.

From then on, you are totally in the hands of Neige and willingly. He is going to lead you on a musical journey and though you have no idea where you are going, you are perfectly content to let him lead, while you sit back and enjoy the ride. It is not often that I can make that claim about an album. And yet the ride he takes you on is full of the dark and the brooding, full of images of decay and disgust, but at no time do you want to turn away. You are too fascinated by the whole experience.

Though it would be a step too far to describe this as a political album, many of the songs deal with quasi-political themes. The sleeve notes contain lyrics and, if you have a passing knowledge of French and access to a decent French dictionary (I speak for those whose first language is not French) then you can unlock the meaning of the lyrics. A dark and depressing picture is painted of the troubles of the modern world. The lyrics deal with images of urban desolation and decay which have rarely been so starkly described since Killing Jokes eponymous debut album. Pollution, dirt, decay, and soulless, overpowering buildings delineate the environment populated by a humanity which has descended to a level of degradation and inhumanity. For a non-political album, it packs a punch.

Thus far, I have described an album which you would feel would get a full five star rating. But that is not the case. The reason for that is simple. Sylvain delivers about 70% of the vocals and Neige the remainder. In the latter tracks, Neige pulls away from the dreamy style he adopted on "Souvenirs dun Autre Monde" and reverts to his former black metal persona  growling. And I hate growling. And growling in a language like French, which sounds like poetry even when it is being spoken is even worse.

What are excellent melodies in tracks such as Heurt, Recueillement and Trouble (Eveils Infames) are, in my mind, blighted by the vocals. That is all the more strange with the second of those two tracks when you consider that the lyric was adapted from a poem by Baudelaire, the nineteenth century French poet. The result of this growling is to bring my appreciation of the album down somewhat from the dizzy heights it ought to have been able to attain.

Having said that, the more I listen to the album, the less the growling seems to grate on me. Having just heard it for the sixth time, I have decided to put the rating up a star. That might imply it is on the same level as "Souvenirs dun Autre Monde" with which it shares a rating. It is not that good, but it is growing on me with each listen. It would be true to say that Neige has done it again.
Rating: 9/10