Alcest

Few projects have taken black metal somewhere as luminous as Alcest. Founded and led by Neige, Stéphane Paut, from Bagnols-sur-Cèze, France, the band works in post-black metal, folding shoegaze and post-metal into a sound that is atmospheric and uplifting rather than merely bleak. Their 2005 EP Le secret is widely considered the origin of blackgaze, a genre the band is credited with pioneering.

The project began in 2000 as Neige's black metal solo venture, grew into a trio, and reverted to a one-man entity after the 2001 demo Tristesse hivernale, when Aegnor and Argoth left. Their 2007 debut album, Souvenirs d'un autre monde, arrived on Prophecy Productions and drew comparisons with My Bloody Valentine and Jesu, followed by Écailles de lune in 2010. Shelter, from 2014, dropped metal entirely in favour of shoegaze, while Kodama (2016) returned to blackgaze. Spiritual Instinct appeared in 2019, and Les Chants de l'aurore, their seventh studio album, came out in June 2024 with the single L'Envol.