Écailles de lune ("Moon Scales") is the second studio album by French blackgaze band Alcest, released on March 26, 2010 by Prophecy Productions.
Although it continues in the direction started with the first album Souvenirs d'un autre monde, Écailles de lune marks a darker, louder transition into shoegaze, while also coming back to the band's black metal origins as it features harsh vocals like those found on their second release Le Secret.
"[1] "Solar Song" is sung in glossolalia, and "Sur l'océan couleur de fer" is a musical version of the poem by Paul-Jean Toulet.
Ned Raggett of AllMusic gave the album four stars out of five, and in particular praised Neige's vocal performance, writing that "Neige's singing is some of his loveliest at many points throughout the album, a soft keen toward the middle of the second half of the title track, a low and contemplative rumination elsewhere – if not notably different from his earlier work in approach, it's at its most enjoyable here, and perhaps at its most beautifully serene on 'Solar Song', vocals overlaid to lovely effect.
That seems to be the common thread between the artists Alcest allegedly hybridize, My Bloody Valentine and Burzum: a single-minded longing for alternate realities.