Live Review: Alcest – SWX, Bristol
16th October 2023
Support: The Devil's Trade
Words: Richard Oliver
Photos: Julian Tanner
Winter has very much set in with plummeting temperatures ensuring that a crowd huddled shivering around the side of SWX in Bristol awaiting a sure that should definitely warm the soul as Alcest celebrated their landmark album 'Écailles de lune'.
A lot of shows I have been to in Bristol in recent months have lacked a local support act to open up the show with this evening being no exception meaning there was another long wait between the doors opening and the music starting. Opening up the show were tour support The Devil’s Trade. These were a band who were completely unfamiliar with me having not heard any of their music or even heard their name prior to the announcement of this tour. Hailing from Hungary the band are a three piece made up of Dávid Makó on vocals and guitar, Gáspár Binder on drums and Gábor Tóth on keyboards.
They performed a mix of doom metal, post-rock and folk music with dense and crushing guitars mixing with powerful intensive drums and layers of ambience and electronic noises provided by the keyboards. These were off-set by calmer and atmospheric sections with the folk element of the bands sound coming through the vocals from Dávid Makó being sung in Hungarian and with the melodies having very much a folk feel to them. The vocals were very melodic and very powerful but with an anguished edge to them and were one of the stand out features of the band. Whilst it was a very solid and enjoyable set, what worked against The Devil’s Trade was the lack of variation with all the songs have a similar structure and pace to them. It was by no means bad but the repetitive nature of the set meant that it did wear a bit thin by the time they left the stage. Having read up on the band I’ve seen that their recorded output is quite varied but that variation seems to be lacking this night.
As previously mentioned, this tour from headliners Alcest was in celebration of their 2010 album “Écailles de lune” which meant that the whole album was performed live from start to finish. For me personally “Écailles de lune” is a special album and it was my introduction to Alcest and to this day my favourite album from the band so seeing it performed live in full was a real treat. The show started with the performance of “Écailles de lune” and whilst I have seen some of these songs performed by the band previously there were one or two that I had never seen in a live setting such as the gorgeous ‘Solar Song’ and the absolutely beautiful album closer ‘Sur l'océan couleur de fer’.
The remainder of the set was made up of songs drawn from the rest of the band’s discography with stunning renditions of ‘Sapphire’, ‘Oiseaux de proie’, ‘Autre temps’ and ‘Délivrance’ amongst others going down a storm with a very loud and enthusiastic audience. The band were on stellar form with incredible performances all round with beautiful vocal interplay between frontman Neige and guitarist Zero whilst the harsh black metal screams from Neige were also very effective. Any minor issues with the sound such as the vocals being on the quiet side were ironed out very early in the set ensuring that Alcest performed with a well rounded sound with all instruments clear in the mix. Neige and the rest of the band were at times taken aback and humbled by the rapturous response from the audience but it was so very well deserved as it was a blinder of a show though I’ve seen Alcest a good number of times and I’ve not seen a bad or sub par performance from them to date.
All in all this was an excellent evening of ethereal and entrancing music and a reminder that heavy and extreme music can be stunningly beautiful as well as intense and severe sounding. Alcest mix those two worlds together in stunning style and remain one of the most exciting and mesmerising bands in extreme music.
Photo credits: Julian Tanner
