Kodama (Japanese for "tree spirit" or "echo") is the fifth studio album by French post-black metal band Alcest.

[2] Musically the album is a return to the band's earlier blackgaze style, due to Neige's feeling that he "needed to go for something more punchy, darker, and more personal."

Kodama is also the first Alcest album to feature bassist Indria Saray, though he has performed live with the band since 2010.

Neige used only a Fender Jazzmaster with a variety of effect pedals, deliberately aiming to recreate the band's more natural live sound in the studio.

"[3] Neige has said that the album is heavily influenced by Japanese culture and by Hayao Miyazaki's film Princess Mononoke.

He cited the band's two tours of Japan, in which they performed within Buddhist temples, as having a profound influence on the direction of this album.

Metal Hammer critic Luke Morton described the album as "breathtaking", writing, "Everything works in tandem to create a vast collage of bliss and despair – from the ethereal, almost joyous aura of 'Eclosion' to the bleakness of 'Je suis d’ailleurs'.

"[17] Stereogum writer Michael Nelson described the album as "pretty close to flawless, and it may even be something of a platonic ideal ...

It has the lush, climactic qualities of Shelter, but the room-rattling urgency and unsettling shadows of Souvenirs [d'un autre monde] and Le secret.

It's a journey of an album, but at no point does the trek feel tiresome: The scenery is ever-changing, utterly engaging, and endlessly wondrous," concluding that it was one of his favorite releases of 2016.

[18] In the review for AllMusic, Thom Jurek concluded that "It's true that Alcest don't really offer anything musically new on Kodama; Neige does that in his lyrics.

Combined with the intense lyricism and dynamic contrasts, it makes for Alcest's most 'complete' album since 2007's Souvenirs d'un autre monde.