After six years, the French group Alcest's now legendary Le Secret EP their first foray into what is now commonly known as "shoegaze metal," gets re-recorded and re-released with the original EP in tow, creating a very unique, and beautifully unsettling 54-minute listening experience. The question of "why re-record a classic?" is answered by Neige - who sang and played all of the instruments on the original: "I was never really satisfied with the original production on it." In hearing the new versions of "Le Secret" and "Élévation," it's easy to hear why. Though he followed the arrangements almost to the letter, Neige did employ a collaborator in drummer Winterhalter here, who is more proficient on the kit. The fidelity - made possible by a bigger recording budget - is infinitely better…

If any proof were needed that anticipation was at a fever pitch for Alcest's second full-length album, it could be found in the fact that a clever leak of Écailles de Lune that made the rounds before its release was rabidly snapped up worldwide even though most of the tracks came from a compilation of Chinese black metal acts. But the fact that it was treated as the real thing shows how strong Alcest's own aesthetic mark has been made already, and Écailles de Lune makes the most of its compelling fusion of black metal's theatricality and the after-echoes of shoegaze's propensity for utterly enveloping a listener, even if bandleader Neige approached that sound unconsciously at first. The first half of the two-part title track that begins the album starts with a gentle guitar chime before the full skyscraping riff kicks in, but - instead of getting even more intense as it goes - it's happy to turn even more elegantly beautiful…

When Alcest released Kodama in 2016, it stood apart from their previous catalog in exploring the "blackgaze" metal subgenre they'd created. It was darker, more aggressive, and had more pointed edges. Earlier outings, from the groundbreaking Souvenirs d’un Autre Monde in 2007 through their breakthrough Ecailles de Lune and Les Voyages de L’ame, offered more tempered yet emotionally resonant aspects of black metal's blastbeat and tremolo-picking textural palette. The release of the infamous Shelter in 2014 saw the Bagnols-sur-Cèze duo indulge in something akin to dream pop. Although Kodama still offered the greater lyrical introspection of its predecessors, it was a much more physical approach…