Alcest

Where this came from

Alcest began in 2000 as the personal project of Stéphane “Neige” Paut in southern France, a vehicle for translating childhood visions of an otherworldly place into music. Those ideas shaped Le Secret (2005) and Souvenirs d’un autre monde (released 8 August 2007), works that recast black‑metal textures in luminous, dream‑leaning colours. Drummer Jean “Winterhalter” Deflandre joined in 2009, and the duo’s second album, Écailles de lune (29 March 2010), fixed Alcest at the forefront of what came to be called blackgaze. Through Les Voyages de l’âme (6 January 2012) and then the metal‑sparse Shelter (17 January 2014), they pivoted between heft and haze before Kodama (30 September 2016) rebalanced the mix. Spiritual Instinct (25 October 2019) marked their move to Nuclear Blast and a darker, tauter sound. The pair have since remained the nucleus, augmented on stage by long‑serving live players Zero (guitar) and Indria Saray (bass).

The records that matter

Souvenirs d’un autre monde and Écailles de lune set Alcest’s frame: blast‑beat surges and tremolo guitars, but written to feel uplifting rather than punitive. Shelter — tracked in Iceland with Amiina strings and Slowdive’s Neil Halstead guesting — deliberately stripped out metal altogether, after which Kodama drew back some of the bite. Spiritual Instinct, issued by Nuclear Blast in 2019, was their leanest, most “metal” record of the 2010s.

Les Chants de l’Aurore arrived on 21 June 2024 and was received as a return to the project’s bright core. Kerrang!’s review on 18 June 2024 called it a step back into the light, highlighting Komorebi and L’Envol as songs that “thread” hopefulness through Alcest’s familiar dynamics. Metal Hammer’s review the same week praised its reunion with blackgaze sonics while noting softer vocal focus and strings. In interviews that spring and summer, Neige stressed the intent: after a half‑decade gap and a darker previous album, he wanted a work of beauty and warmth — one that could feel like a rebirth. He also described recording largely at home and, crucially for the live show, a plan to carry the album’s imagery onto stage: light as staging element, and a set that “transports people to another place.”

Back on European stages, winter 2024

Nuclear Blast announced an autumn–winter 2024 European tour alongside the album’s release, routing through cities including Berlin, Warsaw, Paris and London and closing in Dublin on 14 December. Reviews near the tour’s end show how the new material bedded in. At The Garage in Glasgow on 30 December 2024, Distorted Sound described an artful stage picture — a grand full moon flanked by golden birds — and a set that opened with Komorebi before folding in L’Envol, Améthyste, Protection, Sapphire and Écailles de lune (Part II). The same review noted encores of Autre temps and L’Adieu and characterised Neige’s manner as reserved but the music’s impact as direct; support on that run included Bristol’s Svalbard, who were on the European leg for much of November and December.

First North American run in seven years, February–March 2025

On 17 December 2024 Metal Injection confirmed that the 2025 North American tour would be Alcest’s first there since 2018. The bill added Japan’s MONO alongside Icelandic trio Kælan Mikla. The trek opened at the Royale in Boston on 19 February 2025. Setlist data from that night shows a 9:35 p.m. start and a 1 hour 35 minute runtime, with five songs from Les Chants de l’Aurore — Komorebi, L’Envol, Améthyste, Flamme jumelle and L’Adieu — threaded between Spiritual Instinct cuts (Protection, Sapphire), older staples (Écailles de lune – Part II, Oiseaux de proie) and Souvenirs d’un autre monde, before Autre temps and L’Adieu as encore.

A Boston photo report published 26 February 2025 described the stage as a physical rendering of the new album cover: an illuminated moon centre‑stage and two golden birds, with warm colour washes shaping the mood. A review from Atlanta the same week put the emphasis on how the set’s crescendos landed live and printed the night’s run‑order — effectively mirroring Boston — which became a typical structure for the club shows that spring.

Asia, then a summer of festivals

By July 2025 the tour reached Japan under the Les Chants de l’Aurore banner; Creativeman listed Osaka’s Banana Hall for 18 July, with further dates in Tokyo and Nagoya the same week. In 2026 Alcest returned to European festivals. Wacken’s 2026 line‑ups included the band; and ArcTanGent booked them onto the main stage on 20 August. Reviews from that weekend report logistical delays trimming their slot at ArcTanGent but also a warm reception for a set that bridged the shimmer of newer songs with the punch of older material; both the Razor’s Edge and Devolution wrote up the Thursday bill, the former noting how the band “made every second count.”

Where they stand now

Through 2024–26 Alcest have toured as a headliner in clubs, then stepped back into festivals and bigger rooms. On 2 June 2026 Nuclear Blast announced that the band would spend early autumn in North America as special guests on Mastodon’s tour with Deafheaven, running 16 September in Orlando to 22 October in Atlanta with stops in Montreal, Toronto, Boston, Brooklyn and Los Angeles among others. From the vantage point of early September 2026, that’s the most immediate, dated development: for at least a month they’ll be playing to some of the largest US and Canadian theatre crowds of their career, carrying the Les Chants de l’Aurore live design — the moon and birds — onto bigger stages.

What has changed since the 2019 cycle is the tone and, by degrees, the scale. Les Chants de l’Aurore’s major‑key tilt and choral textures have unlocked gentler sections without losing the abrupt lunges into blast beats; on stage those contrasts have found their footing. Reviews in December 2024 and February 2025 singled out how the new, luminous material cohabits with Écailles‑era heaviness without the set’s energy dropping. And the visual investment Neige trailed in interviews — colour, light, a clear through‑line from artwork to stage — now feels like part of the band’s offer, not an add‑on. The coming month with Mastodon and Deafheaven, at fixed times and under stricter changeovers, will test and likely compress that package. But the run also places Alcest where their last two touring summers suggest they belong: between post‑rock and metal audiences, on nights whose mood swings from hush to roar and back again.