What the fuck are we calling Alcest? Are they even metal, really? Did I hear someone refer to them as black metal once? Fuck kinda black metal is this? What about pastoral metal? I guess I could get behind that.

Whatever you call them, there’s no denying that Alcest’s music is super-relaxing. I mean that as a compliment; a fella can’t mosh all the time, y’know, and Alcest create the kind of music that makes me see those inter-cards from Punch Drunk Love in my head.

The band has a new album, Écailles De Lune (if my six years of not paying attention in French class serve me correctly, that means “scales of the moon”), coming out in Europe on March 29 on Prophecy. There’s no North American release date yet, but while we wait, we can all enjoy the beautiful album cover:

-AR