Review Summary: Scientifically simple but brilliant.
Neige is the biggest whore in black metal.
The French blackgazer is best known for
Alcest and (mistakenly) associated with La Sale Famine and Peste Noire. He's also a part of
Amesoeurs and has now usurped vocal duties for
Lantlos.
While the bastard’s pulling Jack White-level musical prostitution, Herbst, the man behind all the instrumentation for Lantlos, does the real chemistry.
.neon takes riffs reminiscent of everything from
Hammock-style soaring post-rock, to cool jazz, to pop- and arena-rock, drops some blast beats behind it, and smears Neige’s distinctive wails across the top. Fill with tremolo picking and that’s it, that’s the formula. And fortune prick me if it doesn’t work wonders. “Neige de Mars” sounds like kvlt
Mono.
.neon is 6 tracks and just short of 40 minutes, but tracks like “Pulse/Surreal”, with its chill intro and smooth clean vocals (speaking of Toby Driver…) proves the record’s overall solidity. It’s not as folky krieg as Peste Noire, not as gothic as Amesoeurs, and not as light or melodic as Alcest, but Herbst may be the one to finally perfect the post-rock/black metal smoothie (and a perfect perch to keep Neige's talents and ego in balance).
