The very first time I heard Melting Sun was a revelation. From the very first listen, it captured me in a way that very few records have. That record changed the way I thought about heaviness as a sonic element, especially as a guitarist.

When I went back to the albums before it, though, I found them to be abrasive and unappealing, traditional black metal that lacked any of the atmospheric and melodic sensibilities that drew me to Melting Sun in the first place.

But then I gave Agape a deeper listen. Much to my delight, everything I loved about the record that followed it is still here—just with some sharper edges.

Much of this perception had to do with the way Melting Sun was marketed. It was almost impossible to talk about that record without hearing about the email Lantlôs mastermind Markus “Herbst” Seigenhort wrote to Alcest founder and certified blackgaze god Neige “firing” him from the band. Neige had provided screamed vocals for every Lantlôs release up to that point, but as the new album was coming together, Herbst realized that the album would only have clean vocals. This created a clear separation between Melting Sun and the rest of the band’s catalog. Melting Sun was billowing and beautiful: everything before was harsh and grating.

I had listened to bits of .neon and Agape and decided pretty quickly that this dichotomy was accurate. And the moment where “Intrauterin” shifts from swelling atmospheres to aggressive chord hits and throat-shredding black metal shrieks told me that  I didn’t need to dive any deeper.

But the hype for their upcoming album Wildhund made me voracious for more Lantlôs, and I returned to Agape. And much to my delight, “Intrauterin” doesn’t stay in that dark, depressive movement for long. After the opening minutes, it quiets down, becomes more melodic—major even. Granted, this shift doesn’t come until five minutes through the song, but this song is ten minutes. Outside of Neige’s black metal wail, this is exactly the Lantlôs I’ve come to love. The tones of the instruments are almost identical to Melting Sun, down to the drum toms.

This comparison is most obvious on the moments without Neige’s screaming—in particular, the almost jazzy instrumental “You Feel Like Memories” and the album closer “Eribo – I Collect the Stars.” But his presence isn’t enough to make the album feel like a different band. “Bloody Lips and Paper Skin” feels exactly like the Lantlôs Melting Sun introduced me to, even with the screamed vocals.

Once I warmed up to this album, even the harsher moments didn’t seem as off-putting. Even the most kvlt moment on the disc—the blast beats and tremolo shredding that opens “Bliss” is infused with a sense of melody and space that is exactly what I think of when I think of Lantlôs. Slow down the drums, replace the screams with cleans, and strum the chords, and this song could easily fit on the next album. But the real magic comes in the interlude when the drums swing gently on the ride cymbal and the guitars give way to a heavily reverberated piano for a few moments before crashing back in with blackgaze heaviness.

At the end of the day, I’m not sure why I let Neige’s presence become such an obstacle for these early Lantlôs albums. After all, Neige is one of my favorite musicians. There is no blackgaze without Neige. Alcest is undeniably the architect that laid out the blueprints for the subgenre. And screamed vocals or not, Lantlôs is one of the shining gems in that scene, and Agape is blackgaze at its best.