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MISCREANCE
Convergence

Unspeakable Axe / Danex / Desert Wastelands (2022)
Rating: 9/10

This is one of those albums you have to own on every format because of its cover artwork. It’s also the sort of album you must own if you revelled in the technical outings of Death, Atheist and Pestilence.

Italy’s Miscreance are by no means original, in spite of their complexities, but they are clearly a bunch of guys happy to wear their influences on their Bermuda shorts, because this is technical death metal straight out of the late 80s and early 90s. The dehydrated vocal retorts are pure Pestilence, the jazzed up altercations between bubbling bass and angular riffs is total Atheist, while the progressive layers and subtle textures are in complete worship of latter day Death.

I just can’t get enough of this sort of stuff – sneering, arrogant and self-indulgent death metal. Undeniably cosmic and irrefutably otherworldly, Convergence shifts spasmodically so don’t expect to be banging that head. The subtle, progressive tweaks of ‘Fall Apart’ nod towards Steve Vai and Joe Satriani, and there are also flashes of Vektor, nods towards Obliveon and homage to Cynic, but more so it’s a wonderful exhibition of dazzling musicianship which I’ve also experienced with the likes of Droid, Rude and Derogatory.

Miscreance may not be to everyone’s taste, after all, when this sort of creativity was being expressed back in the day a lot of fans fell away as they felt that such acts were sacrificing heaviness in the name of self-indulgence. But as we’ve seen time and time again there’s always room for this level of intelligence, so rather than rattle off track lists I’m simply going to demand you strap yourself into Convergence and become one with its palatial, galactic plateaus.

Let the bass lines of Emiliano Zinà drizzle over you, let the slithering axe work of Andrea Granauro and Tommaso Cappelletti shower you like golden confetti, and succumb to the dry rasps of drummer Andrea Feltrin whose tumbles and trickles just caress with joyful intent.

Every now and then it’s nice to be peppered by a record of this calibre, an outing which takes me back to a time when death metal was heading into the cosmos and leaving my brain in a spin.

Neil Arnold

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