Today saw the release of Alcest’s long awaited (at least by me) third full-length, with a long French name I do not care to write again, but which translates as The Voyages of the Soul . Pretty interesting title. As of today the whole album is uploaded on Youtube, so I’m just picking out some of the highlights for you to listen to, before you buy this beauty.

Ok, wait. I won’t get you any highlights because there are none. This is one big fucking highlight to me. So at the end I will just dump you a link to a Youtube playlist with the whole album and I’ll wish you a whole lot of epic fun with this for the next hour.

We have some news today. Well, you can’t exactly call it news, since it’s a week old already. But that’s for a reason, because in that week, I only sat in my room, in the dark, while spinning the video 24/7, without being able to get up and do something. So my apologies for that.

So we’re talking about Alcest, who are a French Black Metal duo which has had some coverage over here already. That’s actually the place where I heard them first, and since then I was enchanted by their music. They recently released a video for their single Autre Temps, which I must say, almost equals my favourite song Souvenirs d’un Autre Monde.

This album has been described as Post-Black Metal, and, although I’m not sure what that means, I’m happy to go along with that. Whatever Post-Black Metal may mean, all I know is that Resilience is an album full of brilliant Atmospherical, Technical and Electronic Black Metal.

Résilience is the french word for, you guessed it, resilience, which means something like flexibility. I’ve been wondering what this title meant, but as I couldn’t make any sense of the lyrical content of the album, I thought it must have to do with the listener. As I discovered, one has to be a very flexible listener in order to appreciate the music, and personally, I had some trouble shaping myself to this album. It took me two months to actually start on this album, but yesterday night I saw the light, and I journeyed into the magic land of Smohalla.

A couple of months ago we published an interview with France’s Arkan, which was taken by Kilik2049. In reality Kilik2049 is called Simon and he is one of the two guitarists / vocalists in a beginning French band based out of Le Mans – yes, that’s where they do those 24-hour races. The band’s called Blind Tears and they do a grungy piece of Doom Metal. And of course we’re happy to return the favor and give them some air time.

They’ve got a collection of twelve songs out that they’ve titled First Tears. Catchy! It’s not all up to standards yet and the recording quality is poor, but it’s clear the band has some interesting ideas they’re working on. They’re mixing a very classic Metal feel with depressing darkness and doom elements. Sabbath and Iron Maiden are the most apparent influences and these then are mixed with fifty cans of bleach and fifty more of tar.

We paired up two bands with names starting with T today. Not the only similarity, as both bands will also deliver us a juicy portion of melodic Death-Thrash to enjoy. Next to T.A.N.K from France, we’ve also got Trendkill Method, not the first contribution from Latvia on this site, but after Frailty, long ago, definitely the first in a very long time.

Here’s another offering to put right our lack of French Black Metal. Deathspell Omega was formed in 1998 and have released five full-length albums among many splits and EPs.There is virtually no information available on the members who seem to be masters of secrecy. Early on they made raw traditional BM, but on their third album began to show some serious experimentation. That album, Si Monumentum Requires, Circumspice, also began a trilogy that was completed by 2010′s Paracletus. This trilogy’s concept is of the theological aspects of man’s relationship with God and Satan.

You may remember how we reviewed Arkan’s 2011 Salam album in late June. It induced a comment by Kilik2049, who knows singer Sarah of the band personally. A couple of emails back and forth and it was arranged: a short interview with her about the band and about the last album. Took a while before we actually had the interview though, but we’re happy to report about our findings now! Many thanks to Sarah for answering our questions!

A few days ago Niek posted an album review featuring Griffar a French Black Metal band. In that post he made me realize that we are lacking in our feature of French BM which is an incredible shame. So far we’ve had Alcest and Celeste in addition to Griffar and through just those three you can start to get an idea of the diversity and quality of French BM.

Today’s shining example of unique FBM comes as Glorior Belli a band spawn in 2002 who will be releasing their fourth full-length, titled The Great Southern Darkness, on September 27, 2011. From what I’ve heard of their older material (which ain’t much) it’s pretty straight forward BM, but on their most recent release, 2009′s Meet Us at the Southern Sign, they have stirred in some Blues-y, Sludge-y swagger to delicious effect.

While closing in on 2,000 posts since we started and with a memory that isn’t what you’d call ‘solid’ I may well be completely fuckin’ wrong, but I think Griffar may be our first, or than at least one of the first, Black Metal outfits from France we discuss. And not just anywhere from France, but from the pinnacle of Frenchness: Paris. I bet these guys wear striped shirts and berets over their corpse paint all the fuckin’ time when they’re not on stage.

So, the Frenchies that are in the business of Melodic Black Metal have a debut album approaching its release. The first release in a long long time actually, as the last thing they released through official channels was an EP called Of Witches and Celts in, hold your breath, 2002. Apparently there has been some down time since too, but some four of the years covered were lost due to issues with finding a label, meaning Monastery was already composed back in 2007!

Can’t figure out why that is though, as Monastery is some pretty decent stuff. Not absolutely amazing, but definitely decent and full of interesting moments and moves.

The Old Dead Tree is exactly what it says it is: dead. The Gothic Metal band from France split up in 2009 due to internal and musical differences after having existed since 1997. So, don’t expect soon-to-be-released new albums or songs. Instead, you may actually have difficulties getting your hands on a copy of their material if you decide you want to.

But that’s just a lame excuse not to write about a band. Rather, we’ll trust you’ll be able to find yourself a copy if you really need one and introduce you to this late band. Thanks to Thomas for dumpin’ the link to this band.