To live amongst the ruins and feel nothing but the weight of the conqueror worm, the death and destruction necessary for legacy to root, it is entirely natural to resent the festering poison which spikes the land ’til the stone of antiquity finishes crumbling. Clermont-Ferrand, France-based atmospheric blackened melodic death metal project INHERITS THE VOID carries an air of resentment for the powers that’d shaped the western world and how their fangs still emit poison despite the head being long severed and the body decayed on this accomplished third full-length album. A work from an artist who invokes modern sentiment and profound nostalgic sounds in tandem ‘Scars of Yesteryears‘ intends a more direct delivery than before without losing the surreal yet sentimental atmosphere available to past recordings. We aren’t necessarily getting post-melodic black metal as a result but rather a record which carries a strong melodic black/death metal thread while building atop ancient forms, indulging in new sounds and capabilities as the voice of the artist continues to evolve and mature.

Inherits the Void was founded circa 2020 by way of musician A. Scholtès who’d produced a small blip on the regional radar in the 2010’s as guitarist for moderne melodic death metal band Lyrside. This particular project was likely a pandemic era invention and the intent thus far has been well enough described as a vessel for emotional conveyance, where the cinematic atmosphere of post-metal and the intensity of classic melodic black metal find a point of sentimentality together. The earliest works from the project, starting with the ‘M​é​moires‘ EP in mid-2020, were frankly somewhat mediocre or at least indistinct but the goal of creating with sentimental muse was made clear enough. If you’d discovered the band more recently and worked backwards through their discography the first point of notable depth and recognizable tonal reach arrives with their debut album (‘Monolith of Light‘, 2021), their first for Avantgarde Music. The way they’d described that record at the time, something like the moodiness of dark post-metal like Celeste and the thrust of Dissection-era melodic black death made sense, nothing all that new from my point of view as we’ve heard similar ideals from bands like Wormwood (Sweden) and the greater German melodic black metal scenery over the last decade but he was clearly onto something different at that point.

Most folks paid closer attention to Inherits the Void with the release of their second full-length ‘The Impending Fall of the Stars‘ (2023) including myself as I’d described that album as “a loud, wrathful and riff-forward rush of classic melodic black metal delivered with plenty of bombast and aggressive speed. The holistic effect of this record is cold and biting, not lush or dreamlike [like] so many post-‘With Hearts Toward None‘ formed acts looking to the past for precedence, […]” and not to mention the homebrewed, in-process feeling of the music where there the search was for the song and its effect rather than a polished product. I’d gotten the impression that unlike many artists dealing with such outright melody in hand that these pieces should mean something, carry a feeling onto the listener rather than simply be a catchy or ornate thing.

‘Scars of Yesteryears‘ still feels as if it were built by the artists hands and not wiped clean by machinery, though the production values have clarified to a pristine level per their stylized self-recorded intent but with some help from the maestro Dan Swanö at Unisound Studio for its mastering. As was the case with the previous album there is a rushed, calamitous rouse to the higher-sped and blazing ride into this latest album as the artist has developed a voice which should prove more broadly readable yet still specialized in its core interests as any fan of Swedish melodic metal in general should appreciate. The icy whorl of these eight songs only intensifies later on in the album (“L’effigie du D” and beyond esp.) but to start we are treated to a very A Canorous Quintet feeling introductory moment via opener “Celestial Antler” with its whipping pace to start but this is not a simple blaze-through for an opener as around ~two minutes in its gleeful synth driven tarantella interrupts that roll, changing that particular Swedish melodic death sound and fast forwarding us away from a retro sound to some degree. Earlier 90’s purists might not be as keen to this interjection on some level but the song itself is quite well delivered and initially seems to side-step the French atmospheric black metal side of things for the moment.

Where I’d felt Inherits the Void tows the line between something inarguably new in terms of melodic black metal extension but also strides dangerously close to something resembling alt-metal for a brief moment is “The Orchard of Grief”, perhaps one of the most original pieces from the artist to date and a song which emphasizes the use of haunting chorale and synth in the midst of its blasting gusts of speed. There is some authentic grasp of 90’s melodic black/death metal here but also the post-metal + moderne French black metal side peeking through for a moment. That intensity is palpable even if it does generally reflect perhaps dominant interest in the glowy, sentimental side of In Flames/Dark Tranquillity influenced sounds of a certain mid-90’s era as we press on deeper in the mid-portion of ‘Scars of Yesteryears‘ and press our faces into the glow of pieces like “The Meander’s Gate”.

In line with the theme of the album as developed “Ashes of Grievance” has a tone of regret, dissolution to it despite the cold chime of its keyboards/synth application which both constructs and interrupts its own melodic thread. This offers some proof of the artists intent to be both more direct and to more fully embody the ideas introduced on ‘The Impending Fall of the Stars‘. Just a few songs into the album you’ll feel things clicking into place faster and juicing those finer points of intrigue more readily. On that same point I’d also suggest that the more clever listener could identify the general gimmick of the songcraft on offer here, though the use of synth/keys will continue to evolve as we carry on you’ll find the level of intensity sustained throughout the full listen. It won’t take long to learn this already familiar vernacular presented by Inherits the Void though I’d felt Scholtès does a brilliant job of keeping the mind busied with a storm of threads flailing past, some more performative than intimate in their statement yet each song contained enough to carry some of its own impact. Granted most of the “work” of the album has been done in its first half and the rest works from/with that general palette.

The title track (“Scars of Yesteryears”) reprises some of the chaotic vocal experimentation of “The Orchard of Grief” and once again revives this notion that Inherits the Void are embracing some bit of classicism while also creating something freshened by their own perspective, much as it will just read like 90’s melodic metal when it comes time to reach for guitar melodies this vessel is something at least a bit different than the usual post-black atmospheres melodic black metal has been infused with for the last ten or so years, rarely yielding this type of tuneful result. At this point the album has likely soaked the mind with several ~5-6 minute pieces of similar approach yet the nuance shouldn’t be entirely lost in the fray as we reach the final stretch of the full listen. I’d probably have cut at least one of these songs but it’d be a difficult choice as I appreciate the Dissection-esque scales reimagined on “L’eternelle Course des Astres” just as much as the ambitious bombast of apropos closer “The Endless Glow of Twilight”. All parts feel necessary enough, though the full showing is just slightly excessive for the sake of its density of ideas.

Melodic death metal and to a lesser degree melodic black metal thrived most when delivering complex yet impassioned works in the past, the modus we find on this third album from Inherits the Void takes stock of how those forms can (and were) bent to form accessible music early on and inserts the artists own evolving point of view. While we find less and less post-metallic lustre in each work from the artist this doesn’t take us further away from the main goal of emotional connectivity, that core conveyance of mood and feeling which all of their work has put at the forefront of their ideal. A bit more kick in the drums, a brighter than ever render, more pronounced infusion of synth/keyboard assisted melodicism and a gloriously inviting scene via cover artwork by Timon Kokott all amount to a new peak in the efforts of the musician who continues on this admirable tirade. A best-yet rounding up of their core qualities and an undeniably entertaining ride through sour yet somehow inspiringly set lamentations. A high recommendation.

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