Here we have Alcest's first release, an album following the EP "Le Secret" released two years earlier. "Souvenirs d'un Aute Monde" an album clocking in at just over 40 minutes consisting of very lackluster folk/shoegaze/post rock sound that ends up not offering very much to warrant someone giving up 40 minutes of their time to listen to it. That said, the reason why this album is less than likable could be rounded off as simple as the Niege being a "rookie" (for lack of a better word) as this is after all only the debut, and the project did go on to create some really good albums but this one just fails to meet the mark to be recommended.
There are two major reasons why this album doesn't work that well: The first is with the nature of the music itself. As I said, Alcest plays a basic mix of folk, shoegaze, post rock and some black metal which would prove to be a working formula in the future when they created some very somber and emotive pieces that were, in a word, great. But with "S.D.A.M", the whole thing has the exact opposite effect and suffers from an extremely underwhelming structure, uninspired melodies, pretty generic instrumentation and some very, very weak clean singing. Another problem is that the whole thing feels like its driving towards something that it just never gets to. And that's the first of two major flaws that sink the album for me. The fact that it just never, ever goes anywhere and instead feels completely like build-up, which was fine for the first few minutes, but once the album were half over, I made a prediction that the album would never change and this was it, and it was a prediction that was correct.
The second major flaw with this release is its emotional impact. Or rather the complete absence of any form of impact whatsoever, which is really unfortunate because emotion, atmosphere and mood is one of the driving things for bands like Alcest. So when a band goes for that type of sound and doesn't succeed in its goals, what you're left with is a boring, tired sound that has no reason to be listened to. It tries for this uplifting, magical and happy atmosphere, but instead feels forced a very pretentious and just in general very disingenuous.
To make the problem worse, the whole album retains this very boring and uninteresting vibe from start to finish. It never gets any more engrossing (although it does try, to give it a bit of credit) and just feels as a whole feels unathentic, synthetic and non-genuine. It has a lot of bars that it tries to reach and misses everyone. Musically, artistcally, atmosphericaly (etc etc) and it offers no reason to be moved by it, to be entertained by it, or like it for any reason at all, as it suffers in every reason to find any form of music enjoyment. I would say this album is worth skipping, even for Alcest fans. The project got better with age, but this was a very amateurish debut.
(Originally posted on Metal Archives under "EschatonOmega")
