ALCEST – Protection (OFFICIAL MUSIC VIDEO)

A Fierce First Glimpse into Spiritual Instinct

Alcest return with Protection, the first music video drawn from the album Spiritual Instinct, released on October 25 via Nuclear Blast. The track arrives as a clear statement of intent, channeling the band’s blackgaze foundations into something taut, urgent and emotionally charged. Within minutes, Protection lays out the heavier profile of this era, while keeping Alcest’s knack for luminous melody intact.

The Sound of Resolve

Protection is built on surging, tremolo-laced guitars that swell into a dense, iridescent wall of sound. The rhythm section moves with purposeful momentum, kick drums punching through a haze of reverb while bass lines anchor the harmonic tide. Neige’s vocal approach mirrors the arrangement’s ebb and flow, alternating between airy, layered harmonies and more forceful, near-incantatory lines. The result is a song that feels simultaneously airborne and weight-bearing, a negotiation between vulnerability and self-preservation.

Melodically, the piece pivots on recurring motifs that shift shape as the dynamics rise and recede. The chorus blooms with a melancholic clarity, then gives way to passages where guitars shimmer and fracture like light on water. Textural contrasts drive the song’s arc, with occasional harsher colors bleeding into the mix before dissolving back into lustrous chords. The production favors width and atmosphere, but never at the expense of impact. Every surge lands with precision.

Ritual and Release on Screen

Directed by Craig Murray, the Protection video folds corporeal performance into elemental landscapes. Dancer and actor Susanne Engbo Andersen embodies the title’s central tension through movement that alternates between containment and rupture. Choreographer Danilo Andres frames her gestures as a dialogue with gravity and wind, turning arcs of motion into a ritual of standing one’s ground.

Shot at Havel Studios in Berlin, at Müllerweg/Weststrand on the Darß peninsula in Germany, and in Lincolnshire, United Kingdom, the film shifts between studio shadows and wide, untamed horizons. Sand, salt air and low skies press against the frame, while close-ups capture a tactile grammar of skin, fabric and harness. Costume stylist Raki Fernandez and Zoe Lohmann’s work in hair, make-up and harness design heighten the sense of constraint and transformation. Cinematographer Colin Elves and Murray’s own practical effects favor in-camera textures over digital sheen, giving the imagery a lived-in, analog grain. The edit moves like breath, tightening in moments of strain, then opening to let the landscape flood in.

Context Within Alcest’s World

For more than a decade, Alcest have defined their own axis where black metal’s intensity intersects with shoegaze’s radiant sprawl. Protection situates itself on the sharper edge of that spectrum, following the expansive dream-pop hues of Shelter with the renewed bite refined on Kodama. The song’s balance of ferocity and uplift is emblematic of Spiritual Instinct’s broader focus, which leans into darker introspection without dimming the band’s melodic signature.

Thematically, Protection reads as a meditation on boundaries and inner fortitude, a reckoning with what must be kept at bay for the self to endure. Its sonic architecture supports that idea, pulling between defensive walls and open vistas, between the need to shield and the desire to transcend.

Creative Team

Director: Craig Murray
Director of Photography: Colin Elves
Actor/Dancer: Susanne Engbo Andersen
Choreographer: Danilo Andres
Costume Stylist: Raki Fernandez
Hair, Make-up and Harness: Zoe Lohmann
Practical Effects / 2nd Unit Camera: Craig Murray
Production Assistant: Yuri Shimaoka
Editor: Craig Murray
Shooting Locations: Havel Studios (Berlin, Germany), Müllerweg / West Beach (Darß, Germany), Lincolnshire (United Kingdom)

Release Notes

Protection is the first music video unveiled from Spiritual Instinct, released October 25 on Nuclear Blast. The album is available on multiple formats through physical retailers and digital platforms.

Alcest Live in 2019

13.09. D, Balve – Prophecy Fest
25.09. F, Paris – Red Bull Music Festival (special set with Perturbator)
28.09. NL, Amsterdam – Paradiso
13.10. E, Barcelona – AMFest
18.10. NL, Leeuwarden – Into the Void
19.10. D, Hameln – Autumn Moon Festival
26.10. F, Strasbourg – La Laiterie
02.11. UK, Leeds – Damnation Festival
16.11. D, Neunkirchen – Gloomaar Festival
06.12. E, Madrid – Madrid Is the Dark
07.12. P, Lisbon – Under the Doom Festival
13.12. NL, Eindhoven – Eindhoven Metal Meeting
14.12. UK, London – Beyond The Past

Final Thoughts

Protection distills Alcest’s dual nature into four gripping minutes, pulling light from dark and weight from air. As an opening signal for Spiritual Instinct, it is both an invitation and a line drawn in the sand, proof that the band’s most compelling work often emerges where fragility meets force.