Alcest is a band that I have mixed feelings about. I can never decide if their music is good! On the one hand: highly atmospheric, smooth, recognizable, and with some surprisingly catchy choruses. On the other hand, the atmosphere is so thick and langorous that it feels gimmicky, and every Alcest song sounds similar. Tempos rarely change between tracks. We remain at a steady 4/4 beat throughout.
Look, I don't know if it's good, but I know that I like it. It's a guilty pleasure. If you want thirty minutes that won't be too jarring, that will have a few choruses or hooks that will delight you, Spiritual Instinct isn't a bad choice. A track like "Sapphire," with its emo-y chorus of layered vocals, is exactly what I am in the mood for sometimes.
Alcest doesn't need my advice--they're extremely successful, probably because they've decided to do their own thing. But if they wanted to hear it, I would ask them to strip out some of the atmosphere and experiment with time signatures and tempos. It would either make them a much better band or a much worse one: either way, I would be sure.
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