While most Metal is tough, brutal, uncompromising, savage, or any other similar adjective, the genre isn't without its supply of pretty. Take, for instance, an OPETH acoustic passage. Or, how about Liv Kristine? Her, vocals! Get your heads out of the gutters.

But French musician Neige does pretty in an entirely different way. He's shown his uglier, more hate-filled side with Black Metal blasters PESTE NOIR and explored his darker, more Gothic charges with AMESOEURS, but ALCEST has been an entirely different project. It's damn-near childlike in its innocence at times, almost like a Metallic Peter Pan without the creepiness that's associated with that image (mostly thanks to the now-deceased Michael Jackson).

Neige freely sings of other worlds, fantasy beings, dreams, and at times his music is so ridiculously serene (especially the gorgeous 2007 full-length debut "Souvenirs d'un Autre Monde") you forget just how explosive some of the man's other work has been. On "Ecailles De Lune", we get a bit of a reminder of Neige's harsher side, as some of his Black Metal roots are able to grow and wrap its vines around the material, even if it's just slightly. Listeners are still immersed in dreamlike mind frames and sleepy melodies, but now and again, the drapes are ripped open to reveal the storm.

"Ecailles De Lune", while not necessarily an essay on suicide or death in a concrete form, follows a character who wishes to graduate from one plane of existence to another. Neige said visits to the sea inspired much of this journey and its sonic qualities, and the way the music flows, that's fairly easy to believe. The plot floats along, sometimes over calm bodies, others, such as during the track "Ecailles De Lune - Part II", amid violent waves and a whirlpool of emotion that must be battled to avoid drowning.

"Ecailles De Lune" is a beautiful document, one that's impossible not to want to revisit. It's not for the mosh-all-the-time crowd, that's for sure, but Neige's music has always gone beyond that. Opening your mind and accepting this new world will lead to enrichment of the spirit for most, and might even leave you wondering if the rest of your Metal catalog isn't somehow letting you down.