Mercenary
Album: Architect of Lies
Release Date: March 25, 2008
Label: Century Media

Track Listing
01. New Desire
02. Bloodsong
03. Embrace the Nothing
04. This Black and Endless Never
05. Isolation (The Loneliness in December)
06. The Endless Fall
07. Black and Hollow
08. Execution Style
09. I Am Lies
10. Public Failure Number One

Reviewer: Eric

Architect of Lies is the latest release from melodic death metal band Mercenary. Labeling them in this genre is rough mainly since the band adds in both power and progressive metal aspects to all their songs. Mercenary is one of those bands that are all out there for the best reasons. In Architect of Lies their kind of music shines with no flaws.

The albums first track (New Desire) is more on the melodic death metal side with the growl type vocals. This song doesn’t have these vocals all the time; Mikkel Sandager offers his best power metal vocals for the majority of the trip. To round up the rest of this stellar track all of the other members play to their fullest potentials.

When I say other band members, without naming them, you know there has to be a lot. Mercenary has six members, something that isn’t completely common in this field of music. Slipknot has God knows how many, but at least with Mercenary every member brings something worth while to the table.

By track three of this record you should be sold on how good it is. Embrace the Nothing was the first song that the band released on their Myspace page, which may indicate this track as being the first single. If this were the case I think it would be a strong song, it shows off everything good about Mercenary.

The drumming from Mike Nielsen might sound boring at times, but half way through this song, and especially at the end, you will be blown away. Jakob Mølbjerg guitar solo, followed with a nice keyboard part from Morten Sandager, is simply mind blowing; you really need to hear it.

I can’t find too many problems with this album, even after ten listens. There is a nice blend of heavy and a soft song on this album, but one thing that there isn’t a song like Loneliness from the 11 Dreams album. This song alone made 11 Dreams the best Mercenary album, the almost three minute instrumental they had before this track set up the whole song.

Architect of Lies doesn’t have anything like that; you get ten tracks that just kick ass. This doesn’t make it a bad album, but this is not the best album Mercenary has released. Public Failure Number One is a nice closing track for this album, a little too much anger maybe, but it fits the overall album real well.

Final Verdict
If you haven’t given Mercenary a chance yet then you better do so now. Architect of Lies is one of the first must own albums of the year. They have been other great albums so far in 2008, but this one just seems to blow them away. Fans of melodic death metal, power metal and progressive metal will find something in here.

Rating
10 out of 10

Mercenary Official Web Site
Mercenary on Myspace

Mercenary - Isolation (The Loneliness In December)