Ronda has satellite radio in her truck but she prefers the pop stations.
I went to fuel up her truck last Saturday and surfed through some of the more alternative stations I like and then stopped on the heavy metal channel where a song called La Ou Naissent Les Couleurs Nouvelles (Where The New Colours Are Born) by a band called Alcest was playing.
It wasn't the usual loud, fast and screaming fun. It was melodic heaviness, thick layers of guitars topped with this ethereal voice that plummeted into a guttural roar in the middle of a song that was nearly nine minutes long.
Imagine if Pink Floyd did metal and that's what this song was like.
I've been listening to Alcest all week at work on Grooveshark and I checked out the Alcest story on Wikipedia.
"They" are basically a one-man band, led by a singing multi-instrumentalist named Neige (that's French for snow), with some help from his musical pals. Alcest started out in 2000 as a "black metal" outfit and has been getting progressively lighter. Their 2012 release, Les Voyages de L'me (The Voyages of the Soul), which includes La Ou Naissent Les Couleurs Nouvelles, is a rock stew of influences, including metal.
Last month, Alcest put out its fourth album, Shelter, where it all but shed its metal roots to make an atmospheric rock record, where the guitars soar with the vocals.
Alcest is just the latest in the "French invasion," led by Daft Punk, Phoenix and M83.
Check out Opale, the first single from Alcest's new record, Shelter, right here - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADIEAW65H5o&feature=kp.
The French dictionary is optional.
