Black Metal History Month - Silhouette : "Les Retranchement"

 

Black metal is a careful balance. Perhaps even more so if you are trying to win over my fickle ears. You cannot just sell me on relentless blast beats with not other dynamics as it becomes noise. At the same time if you linger on melody and atmosphere to much then you are not convincing me you are evil enough. For the purpose of this review the first track which is basically an intro that is just Nightwish like singing. The metal elements are not introduced until the 2nd track which is the first song, and we are going to refer to it as the first song from here on out.  It reminds me of Mykur's first album. The second song gets better as darkness is the most important quality of black metal and it gets darker. In some way being French allows me to cut them a little slack as Alcest also has to warm up into things and find a balance. 

In some ways this album is actually more of an ep than a full-length album as there is an interlude after the second song breaking the two halves of the album up along with an outro, that I will skip altogether. The interlude has some cool music to it, and I think it should have been worked into one of the actual songs. The female vocals also sound more like the Gathering here which I am a fan of. At almost two and half minutes the dreaminess summoned here is more like song So I will count it for the purpose of this review, though if you are not a fan of atmospheric music like the Cocteau Twins and came here just for black metal you might want to skip it. When they back in with the title track the male vocals are sun not screamed at first. The clang of the guitar is still dissonant enough to work as black metal. It all begins to click into place for me by this point. 

The last full-length song is heavier and more black metal with the female vocals floating in here and there, but not being the main focal point of the song until midway into things. I think they have played a better balance act in the previous songs. Though some of the atmospheric passages here are creepier.   I will give this a 9.5 and see how it sits with me, it is going to take many listens to fully unpack what is going on here and what this is , there is however enough black metal for it to belong here, and if you want something that is atmospheric with folk inspirations along with a side of black metal check this out. Out on Antiq Records