photos by Erika Schultz
Profound Lore’s final release for 2024 arrives from California-based duo MEFITIS, and their twisted third album, The Skorian // The Greyleer.
MEFITIS is a dark metal endeavor dedicated to venturing the shadowy depths and desolate expanses of musical expression. Formed by Pendath and Vatha in 2007, MEFITIS would from day one embody a metallic maelstrom intruding on the defined boundaries of extreme music. After some fallow years, the duo emerged to realize their dark metal vision with the 2019 full-length Emberdawn. This record put forth their signature style of boundless songwriting across black and death metal, telling parables of degradation and savagery in both lyrics and the very music itself. The kindling now sparked, MEFITIS returned in 2021 with their follow-up in Offscourings. Here they would expand further on the possibilities of dark metal, exploring gloomier climes and thornier guitar arrangements. In addition, the band solidified a conceptual framework for the music to occupy, known as Skoria. In this parallel world out of time, the music, themes, and imagery could exist as ideas unto themselves rather than mere simulacra.
And so, MEFITIS brings you their newest work: a duology in grey titled The Skorian // The Greyleer. Initially conceived as an experiment for analog tape, the new record is informed by the constraints and particular character of that medium. Every piece of sound you will hear was initially tracked to tape and then digitized and mixed by the band. The dual title is indicative of the two halves, which were recorded in separate time spans and studio locations. However, The Skorian and The Greyleer are reflections of each other, and can be appreciated both in parts and in whole. Where past works looked outward to an ashen world, this new release contemplates its own crumbling edifice. It calls into question the very notion of one’s ‘self’ as an entity in thrall to its master. Witness now this loathing gallery and join the grey.
The album’s first four movements, comprising The Skorian, were recorded to analog tape during 2021 and 2022 at Emberdusk Studio, and the corresponding four songs of The Greyleer were recorded to analog tape during 2022 and 2023 at Emberdust Studio B. Once digitized and mixed by MEFITIS, the album was mastered by Dan Lowndes at Resonance Sound Studio (Chthe’ilist, Suffering Hour, Pallbearer) and fitted with a gothic painting by Billy Norrby and additional art by Catarina Putri, Saheefa Mustafa, and Forest Hughes.
MEFITIS has chosen “The Untwined One” to represent the first chapter of this release, entitled The Skorian. With these four tracks, the band outlines a vision of archaic dark metal printed onto anachronistic technology. These are imagined histories from a theorized past; projections on a screen with accompanying horror fare. Here they distill their vision into the barest essence of dark metal, then invert or refract these ideas into stark new distortions. Linger long, and you too untwine.
Listen to MEFITIS’ “The Untwined One” everywhere including YouTube HERE and other digital points HERE.
The Skorian // The Greyleer will be released November 29th on LP, CD, and digitally. Find preorders, presaves, merch, and more via Profound Lore HERE.
The Skorian // The Greyleer Track Listing:
1. Vire’s Arc
2. In Halfsight, The Dustplanes
3. The Untwined One
4. Watcher Over His Own
5. …And The Mason Wept
6. Wanthriven
7. In Gloom’s Gorge
8. The Greyleer
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