Mefitis - Offscourings (2021)^{Release ID: 26047}

It would be impossible to talk about the history of death metal without talking about the band in which the genre is practically named for. Death rewrote the death metal playbook before anyone even knew what a "death metal playbook" looked like back in 1991 and nothing was ever the same. Ever since, we have seen the death metal genre get heavier, more technical and frankly, orgasmic to those who like getting their face melted by blistering riffage and destructive vocals. And it helped pave the way for bands like Cryptopsy, Gorguts and Immolation.

But beneath all of that, there was a melodic side to death metal. Mostly hailing from Scandinavia, groups like Dark Tranquility, Edge of Sanity and At The Gates were doing things to the genre making it more accessible to a wider audience. Unfortunately, those artists and their albums are almost never given the same respect that they deserve for their contributions to the death metal genre. And this is mostly due to extreme metal having a superiority complex and how any sort of commercial success is considered "selling out" and those groups are immediately exiled from the club. It is no surprise that fanbases are becoming smaller and more niche seemingly by the day. 

So why do I bring all of this up? Well I think it's important in understanding the sound that Mefitis are attempting to placate to on this album. This album is taking a lot of influence from those early death metal albums by Death and Atheist, but focusing on different aspects of the music that have never truly been explored before to create a new type of progressive death metal; one that is free from the clutches of tech death. An album that doesn't care about face melting blast beats, guttural belches and shredding guitar solos. 

I have made the argument many times that technical death metal is not equivalent to progressive death metal. No one listens to Opeth's Blackwater Park or Cynic's Focus and thinks "yeah this is really good technical death metal!" And what we have here with Offscourings is a band taking us back in time to the early nineties, but with the knowledge that we have today that was unknown to us thirty years ago. This is not Tomb Mold OSDM; this is a sound that is all their own. 

So what does it look like? Well for starters, it's slow. The lead guitars are not far removed from the tremolo picking you get out of a black metal album, but with plenty of that darkened flair. The riffs are seemingly not  that dissimilar to an album by bands as recent as Contrarian. I was quite contempt with the lack of a prominent rhythm guitar for huge chugging rhythmic passages and allowing for an independent bass line to carry through, and while it certainly does have its moments, I do find the bass to be a little lackluster in points, most notably during some of the bridge's on songs like "Casting the Sediment". Percussion is hardly booming, and it doesn't have to be. The prominent kick drum and lesser snare may be alarming to some,  but it does give it a nostalgic flare for sure.

The vocals may not sound very death metal, but Chuck Schuldiner never had a true low guttural growl during Death's best albums either. They usually persist around the mid register, but occasionally drop down on the closer "Sonstead Blight", almost as if a nod to the future of the subgenre and where death metal vocals would inevitably go in the future. 

I read a review on RateYourMusic comparing Mefitis to the romantic pivot of classical music during the 19th century like Franz Liszt or Richard Wagner. But I found this to be more in line with Johannes Brahms. Brahms was a composer who was not comfortable with creating these huge, bombastic pieces that were the continuation of the late Beethoven sound of the 1810-20s. He would not be writing for twelve horns, thirteen percussion instruments and four choruses. Instead, Brahms chose to take Beethoven's "blueprint" and push romanticism with smaller ensembles, while still playing many of the new trends in classical music that were being implemented at the time. Mefitis' Offscourings is the modern equivalent of Johannes Brahms. A death metal album that is in debt to its influences, but is not concerned with the wankery of technical death metal that it spawned. It is very unlikely that this sound will persist long-term, and even less likely to pick up mainstream or underground traction. If you want some truly great progressive death metal in 2021, this is a very good place to start.