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By GOS (Order ov the Black Arts) and NAPHULA
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Have you ever had that experience where you hit play on something on your laptop or desktop and what emits from your speakers has so many layers that you assume that you’ve got multiple tabs open and that there is music coming from more than once source? So you have to hit pause to try to figure out what else is active in order to more clearly hear what you are intending to listen to? It’s not just me is it? Well, anyway… pressing play on the new INHERITS THE VOID did that to me. Over and over. Like, I paused it and everything stopped but hitting play again just eroded the assurance that there wasn’t something else nonetheless present. Such is the depth and layering achieved with the first full length album entitled Monolith of Light, to be released soon by the ever-impressive Avantgarde Music label. Blowing my fucking mind.
This fledgling one-man atmospheric / epic / melodic / progressive (yeah yeah, whatever, that’s what it is, ok?!) black metal entity from France was born in 2020 and is conducted by a Mr. Antoine Scholtès, who tested the water by self-releasing an EP entitled Mémoires that same year. Great as that offering is, Monolith of Light is, well, a lightyear or two beyond in terms of scope and complexity. Did I mention the goddamn layers? Luckily my buddy Naphula was in town, so I jumped at the opportunity to have him help me sort it out and make sure that my ears weren’t deceiving me.
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‘Pillars of the Aether’
GOS: Alright man, check this shit out.
NAPH: Right off the bat, once the song gets going, I’m reminds me of MARE COGNITUM. Specifically, the album Luminiferous Aether, ironically, since it has a similar name as this track. I love that album. I’m curious if the drums are live or not. It doesn’t really matter either way because they’re awesome, but if they were live that would make them even greater.
GOS: I love that tinkling cosmic shit right at the beginning, but I’m glad that it’s just a brief snippet to start things off and it wasn’t like a three-minute intro or something. That sort of thing sometimes can make me lose interest right from the start, so I end up just skipping the first track anyway and going straight into the second one. It’s also cool how it is panning back and forth from the right to the left, which I didn’t notice on my speakers but I can hear on headphones. But I’m really blown away by the sheer immensity of everything that’s going on, like all of the different simultaneous tracks and melodies. There’s so many things that sound atmospheric, from the keyboards to multiple guitar tracks, to the drums… it’s like everything is constantly swirling around everything else.
NAPH: Agreed, this shit is super dense and ethereal sounding. Tons of layers and whatnot. Which I love.
GOS: So one thing I noticed more so in the first EP is almost like a progressive metal or almost djenty aspect to it, which is cool because it provide some variety that’s not just full-on cosmic wave onslaught the whole time, but I’m not sure if this album has as much of it or what it is going to do with it. Might be more subtle here.
NAPH: I haven’t heard any djent yet, but I’m digging this interlude quite a bit. A nice respite from the wall of sound, while still maintaining that same spaciness.
GOS: Yeah, more progressive. Those epic chants are cool, the clean vocals? Beautiful.
NAPH: I’m really liking the harsh vocals too. They don’t vary much, but they have good tone and don’t do any of that screechy, wailing shit that I hate.
GOS: Word. I do prefer a bit more variety but yeah, these vox are completely acceptable.
NAPH: Outro goes back to the slightly industrial electronica that was in the intro. That song was awesome!
‘As the Winds Moan the Threnody’
GOS: Alright, do you hear that extra guitar that’s doing that weird like… creaking shit? That sort of semi-dissonant moaning sound? That’s cool as fuck. Reminds me a bit of what GRAVENCHALICE does, which comes to mind because I’m also working on a review of that band. I wonder if that is what the track title is referring to. Well played. Pun intended.
NAPH: Yeah, the riffs this guy comes up with are both catchy and unique.
GOS: Loving this trippy guitar lead at about two minutes in.
NAPH: Also loving the addition of clean vocals. Semi-chanty, but not entirely. Lots of good tone in them. I love the odd break in the timing in this part that starts around 4:25, it reminds me of something, but I can’t put my finger on it. God damn, so much going on in this song… so many layers.
GOS: See?! I knew it! I feel like I would have to listen to this track a dozen times just to figure out what the fuck all these guitars are doing. It’s like they’re shooting off and flying around in all different directions.
NAPH: Yeah exactly, this shit is complex.
GOS: I’m digging it. This song is tripping me out. Might even be better than the last one.
‘Monolith of Light’
NAPH: Hah, this song starts out “slower”… even though the riffs are still going off like crazy. Man, I love the complexity. The guitars are constantly evolving and expanding. So cool.
GOS: Definitely seems a little more laid back, more casual or melodic… oh wait, now its building. Is this shit going to explode? Hah, yup! With one of those cool accentuating grunts even. Nice.
NAPH: Holy shit, this part at 2:30, I’m loving the… lead guitar? Or is that synth? I think it’s guitar… shit sounds trippy as fuck.
GOS: I know, and we haven’t even really been able to absorb what the fuck the synth is doing yet. There’s just so much happening. Makes good for repeated listens though, and it also seems like one of those albums that you hear new things if you listen to it on different sound systems.
NAPH: Some background chants going on. I have a soft spot for chanting, and this stacks up.
‘Unfathomable Echoes’
GOS: A couple of criticisms, just because. One, I feel like the kick drum could have like a little bit more pop or something. There’s a lot of well-executed, well placed kick, but seems muffled in the mix a bit. Also, the tracks are awesome but there isn’t a lot of dynamism here, each one seems pretty similar to the last and the album overall seems pretty samey although what it is consistently doing is pretty fucking cool.
NAPH: Yeah, even though there’s plenty of variation in the riffs and no two riffs are the same, there does seem to be a repetitiveness. Although, I really enjoy what’s going on with this album. So I think I’d say, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” But I certainly understand what you’re saying. It’s more a fact that the album is kind of hard to review without us sounding repetitive. The music itself isn’t necessarily repetitive. But rather, the song structure is. It’s certainly a joy to listen to, and I love what’s going on, but I’m having a hard time coming up with so many synonyms for saying how awesome the riffs are.
GOS: I see what you mean… it’s almost as if, in choosing to do a review which attempts to describe each track, we find that we are tempted to say the same things over and over. The words I used for the first few tracks are pretty much the same I would use for the subsequent ones. Perhaps some sort of emotive review would be more appropriate instead of an analysis? But even then it seems like the emotion doesn’t vary much either from track to track. That last criticism is I guess more of an observation. I feel like this guy has enough talent that if he wanted to do variety, he would do it. This album isn’t meant to be like that.
NAPH: All that being said, track 4 was pretty fuckin cool. Even though it’s over now, hahahaha!
GOS: Heh, oops. I’ll try to pay more attention to the next one and not get off on a tangent, although… I guess the fact that it happened in itself says something.
‘Starless Path’
GOS: This definitely reminds me of something, part of this riff… shit… this is going to drive me crazy… almost two minutes in and I’ve got it, sounds a LOT like the outro riff from ‘Limbs’ by AGALLOCH! …wait, did that track just end? What the hell? It was just getting going.
NAPH: That was super abrupt, was that intentional or did this track get cut short on the promo? That didn’t sound intentional to me…
GOS: I have no idea. It’s not up on Bandcamp yet, so I can’t really check to see if the track lengths match up. It’s possible that it was acting like some sort of interlude or intro to the next track and it would sound more seamless when it transitions on vinyl or something. I’ve found that to be the case a lot of the time.
‘Through the Eyes of Cosmos’
NAPH: Holy fuck, this track started going OFF around 48 seconds. Goddamn, that sounds amazing.
GOS: Yeah that more aggressive blasting and wailing guitar is going down VERY well. Even afterward, that drumming has a lot of complexity. Agree, I too am wondering if this is live drumming or programming.
NAPH: This interlude at about 1:43 totally gives me a WAYFARER vibe, which is random since this is a completely different genre. Reminded me of something off of Romance With Violence.
GOS: Well, both bands are pretty “progressive” for black metal I suppose, but yeah this definitely has a cosmic angle as opposed to WAYFARER’s wild west thing. Aaaaaaaaand back to the blasting! Shit, just as I was thinking that I was having trouble differentiating the tracks, this one has to go and kick a bunch of extra ass. Love that chaotic swirling on the guitar layers when the percussion is blasting away.
NAPH: Closest comparison is still MARE COGNITUM though, I stand by that.
‘Aorasia’
NAPH: God damn, that intro. The final track is bringing the heat right from the start! This might be my favorite song on the whole album.
GOS: I’m definitely buying the LP. FUCK this song is good. Absolutely love the cinematic, epic melodies on top of that percussion. There’s nothing else I can say here that I haven’t already said. I’m just getting lost in this track, its fucking great!
NAPH: Tons of atmosphere in this track. Even the interlude, which came out of nowhere, managed to fit into the song quite well. And once the song picked back up again, it went full speed ahead. Epic as fuck! These last two definitely seem to be more varied. It’s almost like it heard our criticisms.
GOS: Although truth be told, I felt like the guitars on ‘As Winds Moan The Threnody’ also stood out. I’m beginning to suspect that perhaps we just need to listen more and go deeper to get all of the nuances.
– end –
GOS: This guy is an amazing guitarist. An amazing songwriter and musician for that matter.
NAPH: Absolutely. Tons of creativity in these riffs. And I love how practically every moment has at least two guitars doing different shit. Definitely an album worth checking out and buying, for sure!
GOS: I want to get to know this album well, to find all of those intricacies and nuances that we can tell are there but can’t possibly hear all of with just a single playthrough. I have a feeling even those tracks we glossed over have shining moments that we just can’t absorb without further listens. Overall, an amazing debut from INHERITS THE VOID, available soon through Avantgarde Records on digital, CD, and LP.
Monolith Of Light releases November 26th via Avantgarde Music.
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Pre-order Monolith Of Light on digital, CD and LP from the Avantgarde Music Bandcamp HERE.
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