Power Thrashing Mad
Denmark is not particularly renowned for churning out metal bands, that's usually the task for the Swedes, Finns and Norwegians, so when Danish metal titans Mercenary's new album dropped into my lap I was a little sceptical about its content. Certainly the cheesy and pointless opening keyboard introduction, 'Into the Sea of Dark Desires' confirmed my worst fears, however what followed was pretty much a powerhouse of European metal. Lulled into a false sense of security by the initial interlude, 'World Hate Centre' hits like a bomb and powers along in the same vein as In Flames and Soilwork. Mikkel Sandager's vocals are very similar to the aforementioned bands, however the building melody in the chorus is sung cleanly with a subtle harmony adding depth to his voice. The screamed verse, clean chorus trick was very much a nu-metal device adapted by bands such as Soilwork, and it is well worked here although to Mercenary's credit they only use the trick once.
The title track is a meaty mid-tempo number over which some delicate piano battles against the wall of sound emitted by the other instruments. It is the highlight of the disk and well constructed, notably choosing to take the guitars out of the mix straight after the solo enabling the song to build again. 'ReDestructDead' is another power-house track with the riff at 1.30 minutes sounding utterly devastating at it grinds and snarls before going back into the verse. It is as deep shame this riff was only used once during the main part of the song, but it is cleverly brought back at the end to produce a short passage of music even Slipknot would be jealous of. The onslaught of quality continues with 'Firesoul' and the superb but moody 'Sharpen the Edges', the latter sounding very much like label-mates Nevermore.
'Supremacy V2.0' is a vicious mini epic with growling, big riffage and an excellent solo by Martin Buus. Martin's talent is easy to hear as he shreds like a Jeff Loomis trainee, sweeping up and down the scale as if he was in some sort of 'Crossroads' battle with Loomis himself. Another mention must go to the awesome talent of vocalist Mikkel. He can scream, screech, growl and falsetto showing off every aspect of his voice. His insistent use of harmonies is a little over produced at times, which, occasionally clouds the melody and quite frankly seems unnecessary. Morten Sandager's keyboards are woven smoothly into the sound, choosing to add depth and power to the track rather than be at the forefront of the song a la Nightwish and Epica. Although the keyboards on the whole work well, there are a few times when using them sparingly could have added an extra dimension, however the piano ride-out on 'Falling' is majestic. Maybe adding the keyboards to increase the intensity to a lead break or a munificent ending would have been a better idea, for I am definitely in agreement of the old cliché of 'less is more' regarding the use of keyboards in metal.
As you progress through the disc you realise it's difficult to pin the band down to any particular style. At their heart Mercenary are power metal but they've expanded their boundaries to prevent sounding cheesy and generic, often dipping their musical toes into the pool of thrash and melodic death. It works brilliantly because Mercenary have managed to overcome that difficult task of making the album sound coherent even with its genre jumping tendencies. The songs are well put together and the production has a huge bottom end although they do tend to hang around the mid-tempo mark a little to often, and with the constant drone of keyboards behind the mix some of the songs don't come across as memorable as they should. This is a classy release and perhaps may make my top ten for the year. If you're a fan of Soilwork and Nevermore and want to avoid the usual power metal shenanigans of the likes of Edguy and Freedom Call, then I seriously advise you to check out Mercenary. On the other hand if you're a fan of all of the above then get you should get 11 dreams anyway, you'll be impressed.