Alcest is a French band founded in 2000 by musician Neige, and is considered a pioneer of the genre known as “blackgaze,” a fusion of black metal and shoegaze. Their music is characterized by the contrast between heavy guitar walls and ethereal, dreamlike melodies that create a unique, otherworldly atmosphere. From the very beginning, Neige aimed to use Alcest as a way of expressing his own visions and spiritual experiences, which is why the lyrics are often imbued with themes of nostalgia, transcendence, and spiritual exploration. The band earned critical and fan acclaim with albums such as *Écailles de Lune* (2010) and *Kodama* (2016), where they masterfully balanced melancholy with intense energy. Alcest are also unafraid to experiment—while their early work leaned more heavily on black metal, later albums such as *Shelter* (2014) almost completely abandoned it, diving into purely atmospheric shoegaze and demonstrating a constant evolution and openness to new musical paths. Thanks to this ability to cross genre boundaries and create music that feels more like an inner journey than just a rock concert, Alcest have become one of the most distinctive bands on the European alternative scene.
