Mercenary - Architect Of Lies

Published March 01 2008

*=Staff's pick	New Desire Bloodsong Embrace The Nothing This Black And Endless Never Isolation (The Loneliness In December) The Endless Fall* Black And Hollow Execution Style* I Am Lies Public Failure Number One

Genre	Metal	Mikkel S./Rene P.	Vocals
Tracks	10	Jakob Mølbjerg	Guitar
Runningtime	52 Min.	Martin Buus	Guitar
Label	Century Media	Rene Pedersen	Bass
Release	17 March 2008	Mike Park	Drums
Country	Denmark	Morten Sandager	Keyboard
Similar artists	Nevermore, Evergrey

Allow me to quote my reviewing friend Thomas from his review of Mercenary's previous album The Hours That Remain: "Mercenary is a band that is in constant evolution, for each album they go further and further away from the melodic thrash and death simpler style". Absolutely correct and that is something that is even more true with the new album Architect Of Lies. Not much is left of the old Mercenary that I enjoyed very much.

Development and change is (almost) always good, but Mercenary of today does not appeal much to me. There are not many distinct riffs to talk about, but instead the oh so boring, thick wall of guitars with normal, melacholic vocals on top. I do not know if I even under gunpoint could separate one chorus on the album from the other. The production makes the songs melt together as one even more and makes it very hard to digest.

But what do we have in The Endless Fall? Mercenary as we were used to hear them a few years ago, and suddenly it becomes interesting. A pumping, good riff accompanied by semi-growling vocals. But alas, that is the only song on the album reaching those heights. To be quite frank, something seems to be crawling under my skin when I listen to the whole album in one sitting. It seems to be an attempt to be sugarsweet and radio friendly but yet flirting with metal fans, but that it is a project that fails in my ears.

I will now place this album back in the shelf and I highly doubt that it will see the light of day again.

See also review of: Through Our Darkest Days , The Hours That Remain , Everblack , 11 Dreams

Performance	Originality	Production	Vocals	Songwriting
7,5	6	8	7	3

Summary
3,5 chalices of 10 - Tommy