review: Mercyless -- old-school death metal from France

Mercyless

The Mother of All Plagues

XenoKorp

21 August 2020

The French band has had two chances at life. They are on their second one now and this is the third album during this second run, and their seventh overall. The new one continues their current style: an old-school angry anti-religious death metal with a good bite of brutality. To fans of 1990s U.S. death metal, this music will not sound foreign at all. The guitar tone is rather thick while still maintaining certain thrash origins. This is not melodic songwriting, but in the guitar solos there is a little melody. The riffs are made for headbanging or moshing or for physical movement in general. The drumming in 2020 also stays in the older style of blasting when the songs call for blasting, and the main goal is keeping the beat of the songs, and not to be blasting all the time. Fans in Europe or Asia will no doubt hear the music in their own way, but to this review it seems like the band sure is not ashamed of their love of the old American bands, with the Morbid Angel/Obituary-style of deep growling, and the Cannibal Corpse-style blasting/drumming.

Mercyless has had a very uneven history. Their primitive extreme metal in the late 80s gave way to the 1992 debut with Death/Obituary/Possessed-style vocals style matched to a very appealing Sepultura-like speed and catchiness. The 1993 album seemed to slow down a bit while sounding more brutal. Their third album came out until 1996, and like some of the other younger bands (like Morgoth and Gorefest) following the pioneers, Mercyless started to feel uncomfortable playing death metal. By 1996 Mercyless had lost their death metal mojo and were sounding like an experimental band. In 1996 Morgoth seemed so sick of death metal and its fans by naming their experimental album Feel Sorry for the Fanatic. Mercyless seemed just as sick and tired of the death metal fans and named their 2000 groove album Sure to Be Pure. The band seemed to be telling death metal fans to go away. Then the band split up and they apparently became the pop rock band Day Off Sin, as it says on Metal Archives (YouTube apparently has one of their songs). Mercyless had shown themselves to be very flaky and undependable, like they utterly hated the music (and its fans) that they had been so good at on the first two albums. Then, in 2013 Mercyless (with two of the old members) returned with a new album, and this time it was old-school death metal, the chugging, heavier form that they play now (not the speedy death of the debut album).

In 2016 they did another album. Was Mercyless finally at peace being death metal? It sure looks like it. This is where we are with the 2020 album. Mercyless can be criticized for being undependable and perhaps insincere in the past. Nowadays they stick to an anti-religious message. We don’t have the lyrics. Do they also criticize Islamist extremism, violence and terrorism in France, or is it just the old clichés about Christianity? Who knows. Anyway, on their third album since the reconfiguration, they have gotten very proficient at their chugging, thrashing, heavy, and somewhat brutal death metal. Whatever their shortcomings in the past, the new album is well worth the time to investigate for fans of old-school death.

The Mother of All Plagues by MERCYLESS