MetalPost-rock
Nuclear Blast have announced Alcest’s European tour for spring 2027: twenty-three shows between 12 March and 10 April, with Americans Agriculture supporting throughout except for the last two dates. The tour kicks off in Annecy and wraps up in Porto.
The schedule runs through France, the UK, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Poland, Czechia, Slovakia, Austria, Germany and Portugal. There are no dates in Spain: the closest stops will be Lisbon on 9 April and Porto on 10 April, which are precisely the two where Agriculture won’t be along anymore. The setlist will keep drawing on «Les Chants de l’Aurore» (2024). In the label’s press release, Neige says Alcest are a strange band both in the metal scene and in the post-rock one, never quite fitting in anywhere, a position he extends to his own way of being in the world.
The band started as a black metal project — the 2005 EP «Le Secret» — and changed direction with «Souvenirs d’un autre monde» (2007), the record often pointed to as the origin of blackgaze. Neige has often said the source material for the lyrics comes from childhood visions of a luminous world, a thread that runs through «Écailles de Lune» (2010), «Shelter» (2014), «Kodama» (2016) — inspired by «Princess Mononoke» — and «Spiritual Instinct» (2019).
Alcest are a duo made up of Neige, who sings and writes, and drummer Winterhalter. Before the European tour they have a commitment on the other side of the Atlantic: they’re supporting Mastodon and Deafheaven on the North American tour that kicks off 16 September in Orlando and wraps up 24 October in Dallas. Their 2027 support act, Agriculture, are from Los Angeles and describe themselves as ecstatic black metal.
Text by Mireia Bagués