With Spiritual Instinct, Alcest leaves Prophecy Productions to join Nuclear Blast, and this label change is almost physically felt in the record’s sound. The guitars are sharper, the bass (played in the studio by the band’s live bassist) more present in the mix, and Neige’s voice oscillates between ethereal clean singing and screams that haven’t sounded this piercing in a long time. The duality that defines the band is back, but it feels more direct here, less diluted in the haze.
Protection, an opening that bites
The title track kicks things off with a heavy riff, almost frontal for blackgaze, before shifting into layers of guitars drenched in reverb. « Protection », chosen as the first single, sums up the balance being sought: a rhythm that hits hard, blasts that surge in waves, then a melodic soar that smooths everything over in just a few bars. It’s one of the most aggressive songs in the band’s repertoire, and it works because it never sacrifices the vocal line, which remains decidedly luminous.
Sapphire, the breath
In contrast, « Sapphire » embraces a more airy approach, closer to post-rock than metal, with crystalline arpeggios and drums that leave room to breathe. It’s the track that pulls the album upward, toward that slightly cold light characteristic of the band’s aesthetic since Écailles de Lune. The second single chosen is no accident: it embodies the album’s most accessible side, the kind that can reach audiences beyond post-black metal fans, without ever sounding like an easy compromise.
A tension that never really lets up
What strikes you on a full listen is how the album alternates between brutal sequences and contemplative passages without ever truly resting. The longer tracks take their time building a tension, an oppressed breathing, before releasing it into soaring choruses. The production, cleaner than on previous records, sharpens this contrast: the saturated parts sound drier, more modern, while the clear sections keep that diffuse, vaporous texture that made the band’s reputation. The drummer, loyal for years, finds a balance here between the technical strike of black metal and a more rock-driven pulse, almost post-punk at times.
Spiritual Instinct is not a rupture in Alcest’s discography, but a record that tightens the contours of their formula, makes it more incisive without losing its emotional dimension. Some may regret that certain intermediate passages lack some of the mystery that made Écailles de Lune or Les Voyages de l’âme so bewitching, the whole thing occasionally feeling more calculated than dreamed. Yet the coherence of the songwriting, the quality of the melodies, and this ability to make violence and clarity coexist without artifice make it one of the band’s most solid records from this recent period. An album that doesn’t seek to surprise at all costs, but refines an already unmistakable language with an efficiency that takes nothing away from its emotional intensity.
