Italian death metal act Miscreance formed originally in 2013, and have released a string of EPs and splits since, but it's fair to say Convergence is their first real album. The album was first released in 2022, but here we have well-deserved reissue on Season Of Mist.  Stylistically, the band lean towards the more intelligent, emotionally nuanced end of 90's progressive death metal, drawing influence from albums like Gorguts' sophomore effort The Erosion of Sanity and the pre-requisuite Individual Thought Patterns by Death.

The particular era from which they draw inspiration is close to my heart, and I immediately loved this band.  Their capturing of an aesthetic is never superficial; they have captured the emotional and philosophical essence of what made these bands' songs powerful.  The songwriting is consistently satisfying, with one clever figure giving way to another.  The agile and often melodic bass playing is similar to Atheist, particularly their 1st creation "Piece of Time", the most death metal of the albums the band made.

The production is convincingly vintage sounding, with a very live drumset (no triggers!) and that characteristic Scott Burns-esque guitar tone.  The vocals are somewhere between the hollow shout of Luc Lemay and Pestilence's Martin Van Drunen, and this almost tragic rasp fits with the mood of the music perfectly.

They have a knack for introducing melody in a manner which makes the music fascinatingly haunting and brooding, but never cheesy.  Like Death, they use harmonized leads in a complex non-linear fashion which only rarely resolves into a triumphant moment, seeming to construct a maze of upward and downward shifts.

Like the early 90's music from which they take influence, there are strong thrash metal roots underpinning the heaviest sections, and this serves to ground the band's technicality and provide moments of pure endearing shred, such as the ripping solo in "The Garden".

Sounding like lost music from one of my favorite eras of metal, Miscreance somehow created a work on the level of the masters of the style with their debut album, Convergence.  I can't recommend this enough; it's been years since I heard death metal of this quality.