It begins softly, with the somber plucking of strings as many hundreds of folk records have begun before. Über den Sternen’s opening guitar line is understated and gorgeous, bolstered by subtle violins after several measures. Immediately a comparison to folk/doom legends Agalloch springs to mind, but it doesn’t last. Whereas Agalloch have always maintained an earthy human edge to their folk passages, Empyrium build layer after layer atop what could have been conventional German folk tunes until they blossom as bombastic neofolk meets heavy metal. Über den Sternen evokes nature aplenty, but compositionally this is a work of style and flourish and flair. Perhaps that’s antithetical to the purpose of folk music in some way, but when it’s done with this much aplomb no one can say it isn’t at least fun.

Thankfully, it’s more than fun. Über den Sternen is, start to finish, an album of expert, layered songwriting that never seems to fold up into a single dimension. Soft acoustic guitars effortlessly give way to apocalyptic climaxes and they to dense instrumental dances. The vocals are an operatic baritone, sometimes drifting into a husky higher pitch or even a snarly growl over the most metallic portions, but always the perfect complement to the music.

Opening cut ‘The Three Flames Sapphire’ is classic neofolk played to its fullest, but it swiftly gives way to ‘A Lucid Tower Beckons on the Hills Afar’, which spends its first half on anthemic epic metal. ‘The Oaken Throne’ is neofolk at its most cinematic and vocally driven, a track that could easily underpin a scene in many an epic fantasy flick. By the time the title track closes out the record we’re deep in a ten minute dark doom behemoth and we’re none the wiser to what should be the absurdity in such a stylistic shift. Empyrium effortlessly compose all eight tracks with a profound eclectic consistency that we can arrive at such disparate places without even noticing.

Empyrium are not newcomers and the prowess they show on Über den Sternen can only have come from a band that’s been honing their craft since the mid nineties. To be sure, it’s a far cry from the more metal-centric fare of those days, but the wild, spreading roots of their career is plain to see in these songs. This is a record that can only have been made by a band either near or at the apex of their artistry. Woe be to thee who would follow in their footsteps. (9/10)

Brett Tharp

Band info: www.facebook.com/Empyriumfans


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Time for a confession: I don’t listen to metal lyrics. Hell, about 90 percent of the time I can’t understand a single word on most of the albums I listen to. This makes the barrier between foreign languages essentially nonexistent in a way that couldn’t work for, say, a pop-punk band. It’s a leveler, making the only learning curve one’s ear for outside sounds. This is not to say that all lyrics are junk, simply that I don’t have a clue and don’t particularly need one to enjoy.

Alcest always had an overarching theme behind vocalist Neige’s words, related to dreams he had as a child of a fantastical, impossible place. Previous albums, particularly Écailles de Lune, contained vocal allusions, sure, but more than anything the band provided a sonic means of interpreting those themes, which allowed my incomprehension of the French language (I was always more of a Deutsch guy) to fade away. On Shelter, the band’s latest, those dreamy tendencies predominate, ejecting all remnants of metal besides a residual coldness. In its place is pure stadium shoegaze, mixing Slowdive and U2 in equal measure.

This proves freeing and limiting. Gone are the blastbeats, screeches, and epic runtimes, each song running slightly-overlong for a pop song at five to six minutes. “Opale” and “Shelter” are 120 Minutes-worthy rock, Neige’s voice double- and triple-tracked and free-flowing. It’s beautiful, undoubtedly, and perfectly achieves the shoegaze sound too many bands have reached for in the last half-decade. There is still a bit of a chill left over, particularly on album stand-out “Voix Sereines,” which builds to a fantastically distorted conclusion, guitars creamy and frozen when necessary. That track in particular feels like the culmination of Alcest’s trajectory over the 8 years since Souvenirs D'un Autre Monde, and it works beautifully.

But at the end, we’re left with another question: now that Alcest is no longer a metal band, what is it? What makes it any different from countless My Blood Valentine pretenders? Shelter offers no particular answers. It hits all the right targets but often fails to puncture through them. Therefore, it seems more a step than an endpoint to me, a first project with no metal elements before the band can get on to something new. All of the ingredients are in place, and Neige’s vocal melodies are so smooth they translate even when his language does not. He clearly has ambitions beyond the metal community, and some of the guitar melodies are big enough to fill the stadiums his idols deserved. Perhaps, with something more, he can get there soon.

Rob Rubsam

Band info: www.alcest-music.com
Label info: www.prophecy.de

 

Rob Rubsam is a freelance writer and itinerant resident of Upstate New York. His writing about music has been published at CVLT Nation, Tom Tom Magazine, The Rumpus, Burning Ambulance, and others. When not contemplating giant squids or erecting a standing stone in his backyard, he tweets at @millenialistfun. Do not contact him with your black mass-related inquiries, please.

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