For principal songwriter and frontman Neige, ALCEST has always been a gateway to the otherworldly, a means of exploring his spirituality. An elemental two-piece, completed by long-serving drummer and creative confidante Winterhalter, their forthcoming sixth album »Spiritual Instinct« finds Neige at his most personal. “This time I had something urgent to put on the table,” he explains. “It is a very cathartic record - something needed to get out of me. It’s darker than usual, and heavier.”

 

Written in bursts both during and after a prolonged period of touring in support of 2016’s hugely successful »Kodama«, the sense of urgency Neige speaks of manifests in a record full of spontaneity, of immediate impact – be that in the breath-taking pace of 'Les Jardin De Minuit'’s tempo changes, or 'Sapphire'’s sun-kissed harmonies over an impermeable back beat, one thing »Spiritual Instinct« has is riffs, an acknowledgement and celebration of the black metal foundations that anchor their uplifting post-metal