Alcest Join Mastodon on 2026 Tour with Deafheaven
French atmospheric metal pioneers Alcest will return to North America this fall as special guests on a massive tour featuring Mastodon and Deafheaven. The tour follows Alcest’s triumphant return to North America in 2025 and continues the band’s support of their latest studio album, Les Chants de L’Aurore, released via Nuclear Blast Records.
Released to widespread critical acclaim, Les Chants de L’Aurore further expands Alcest’s singular artistic vision, seamlessly blending shimmering shoegaze textures, post-rock atmospherics, and black metal intensity into one of the band’s most evocative and immersive works to date. A journey through both radiant beauty and profound melancholy, the album drifts between cathartic, dreamlike passages and moments of soaring emotional weight, as showcased on standout tracks such as “L’Envol,” “Améthyste,” and “Flamme Jumelle.” The record marks another high point in Alcest’s celebrated catalog, reaffirming the band’s status as one of the most innovative and influential forces in modern heavy music.
Purchase/stream Les Chants de L’Aurore here.
After distilling the intensity of an incredibly difficult year, Mastodon have returned with a sonically massive and richly melodic new single, “Your Ghost Again.” Written and recorded amidst an unimaginably chaotic and difficult time, the track confronts the untimely death of friend and former bandmate Brent Hinds and the passing of drummer Brann Dailor’s mother. The band reflect on the song’s themes and the losses that informed them in a conversation with journalist J Bennett that they shared on their socials in conjunction with the song’s release – watch it here.
“Your Ghost Again” is quintessential Mastodon, with bassist Troy Sanders and Dailor trading vocals over the alternately bombastic and moody guitars of Bill Kelliher and new guitarist Nick Johnston amid atmospheric flourishes from keyboardist João Nogueira. Equal parts crushing and poignant, the band channel profound grief into one of the most emotionally charged compositions of their storied career, weaving intersecting themes of memory, resilience, and raw vulnerability. Produced by Patrik Berger and Kurt Ballou and mixed by Andrew Scheps, “Your Ghost Again” offers a preview of what’s to come in the group’s next chapter as they put the finishing touches on their forthcoming full length.
“For me, ‘Your Ghost Again’ is about when you lose somebody that’s close to you that you existed with for most of your life — or your whole life,” Dailor says. “It’s those moments when you’re in those familiar places that you’ve always been with that person, and then, after they’re gone, you see them out of the corner of your eye, and it makes you sad because they’re not there. When we were in the studio recording, I kept seeing Brent. I’d see him on my right holding the guitar because that’s where he’d usually be. It’s the same with my mom: I keep seeing her. And you get a little jolt of excitement because you think you’re actually seeing them, but then you remember they’re not here, and it takes you down a notch. So, it’s these big relationships for me that became the subject matter of the song. I was just singing about what I was seeing, and I was seeing ghosts.”
“Your Ghost Again” is out now on Loma Vista Recordings.
Alcest and Mastodon Join Forces to Embark on the Poison Weapons North American Tour with Deafheaven. The tour begins September 16 in Orlando, FL and runs through October 22 in Atlanta, GA, making stops in cities across the United States and Canada.
The Poison Weapons 2026 North American Tour Dates feat. Alcest, Mastodon, and Deafheaven:
9/16/26: Orlando, FL – Hard Rock
9/18/26: Asheville, NC – Asheville Yards
9/19/26: Pittsburgh, PA – Stage AE
9/20/26: Louisville, KY – Louder than Life
9/22/26: Philadelphia, PA – Franklin Music Hall
9/23/26: Boston, MA – House of Blues
9/24/26: Brooklyn, NY – Brooklyn Paramount
9/25/26: Washington, DC – Anthem
9/27/26: Montreal, QC – MTelus
9/28/26: Toronto, ON – Rebel
9/29/26: Buffalo, NY – Buffalo Riverworks
10/1/26: Detroit, MI – Fillmore
10/2/26: Chicago, IL – The Riviera
10/3/26: Minneapolis, MN – Palace
10/6/26: Salt Lake City, UT – The Complex
10/7/26: Boise, ID – Revolution
10/9/26: Oakland, CA – The Fox
10/10/26: Los Angeles, CA – Hollywood Palladium
10/11/26: San Diego, CA – The Sound
10/14/26: Denver, CO – Fillmore
10/16/26: Des Moines, IA – Val Air Ballroom
10/17/26: St. Louis, MO – The Pageant
10/18/26: Memphis, TN – Satellite Music Hall
10/20/26: Cleveland, OH – Agora
10/21/26: Greensboro, NC – Piedmont Hall
10/22/26: Atlanta, GA – The Eastern
10/24/26: Dallas, TX – Sick New World Dallas
About Mastodon:
Mastodon have steadily evolved into one of the most influential, inimitable, and iconic rock bands of the modern era. Since emerging in 2000, the Atlanta quartet have defied both sonic and thematic boundaries with an uncategorizable, undeniable, and uncompromising vision unlike anything else in music. This vision manifested over the course of canonical albums such as Leviathan, which landed on Rolling Stone’s coveted The 100 Greatest Metal Albums of All Time. Following the seminal Crack The Skye [named one of the best albums of 2009 by Time], they earned three consecutive Top 10 debuts on the Billboard Top 200 with The Hunter [2011], Once More ‘Round the Sun [2014], and Emperor of Sand [2017]. Out of six career nominations, they received a GRAMMY® Award in the category of “Best Metal Performance” for “Sultan’s Curse.” They are the rare creative force whose music can be felt everywhere from Game of Thrones, Adult Swim, The History Channel, and DC comics films to Coachella and Bonnaroo. They notably supported the Hirschberg Foundation For Pancreatic Cancer Research with a rendition of “Stairway To Heaven” in honor of late manager Nick John. The group reached another critical high watermark via their ninth full-length, Hushed and Grim. Featuring the GRAMMY® Award-nominated “Pushing The Tides,” it marked the band’s third straight #1 bow on the Billboard Hard Rock Albums Chart. It concluded 2021 on over a dozen year-end lists with Rolling Stone raving, “we get everything from some of the band’s hookiest rockers to date to some of their most awe-inspiring epics.” In 2024 they embarked on a massive arena tour with Lamb of God, celebrating the 20th anniversary of Leviathan, with the two bands subsequently teaming up for the collaborative single “Floods Of Triton” which was met with widespread critical acclaim from Rolling Stone, Forbes, Pitchfork, Revolver, and beyond. Most recently they were honored as guests of New York’s Metropolitan Opera for their acclaimed production of Moby Dick, in acknowledgment of the 20th anniversary of the similarly themed Leviathan. Evolving as they usher rock into new realms, they forever remain the same unpredictable trailblazing beast — Mastodon.
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About :
For principal songwriter and frontman Neige, Alcest has always been a gateway to the otherworldly, a means of exploring his spirituality. An elemental two-piece, completed by long-serving drummer and creative confidante Winterhalter, Alcest seem to dip their toes in a multitude of musical genres without ever quite fitting in. “In the metal scene, Alcest is a weird band, in the indie/post-rock scene Alcest is a weird band – we never quite fit in,” Neige reflects. “This is how I feel in life, always an outsider; It’s not a problem, it’s just the way it is.”
Lineup:
Neige | vocals, guitars, bass, synths
Winterhalter | drums
