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| Listener Rating |
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| 28 listener votes for this album. |
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| Solid melodic metal |
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| By: | Eskidead |
| Date: | 28 Dec 2012 |
| Rating: |
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Architect of Lies is the logical sequel to the great The Hours That Remain from 2006. Mercenary’s new man on the bass and shouts René Pedersen is a fine replacement after Kral left in the spring of 2006. Their style is still spread across a wide spectre of genres: melodeath, thrash, power, prog and dare I say, with René’s shouting and harsh vocals, also a bit of metalcore. What characterizes Mercenary’s albums is that even after listening to them 20 or more times, you still discover new things.
Like the predecessor, Architect of Lies starts with a short keyboard intro fading up before the album really starts. And it’s clear that Mercenary is still Mercenary! The guitar sound is thick and dark, even at the more melodic parts there’s still a lot of heaviness in it. And another thing to notice is the album overall is played at a bit higher pace than what the six guys from Aalborg usually do. New Desire and the following song Bloodsong shows that Mercenary have taken a slightly more brutal path which really suits them. Mikkel’s singing and screaming still proves him as one of the best Danish high pitch vocalist. And his new team mate on the vocals, René Pedersen which replaced Kral in the spring of 2006 certainly does his job with a dare I say, metal core-like rough and harsh vocal. This is in no way meant negative. Their voices go very well together.
And you just can’t put Mercenary into one box and claim they’re only melodeath. While the base of the music comes from melodeath, they also mix in thrash, power, prog and the above mentioned metal core. This is best shown in the very brutal and very melodic The Endless Fall and the more soft Isolation (The Loneliness In December).
Execution Style is probably the highlight. Extremely tight played and with a high variety in verse and chorus. It’s the best example of how harsh René’s voice is. He could probably break a concrete wall down just by shouting at it.
But unlike The Hours That Remain where some of the songs lacked a bit of idea, I really feel all of the songs on Architect of Lies have an identity of their own and go in a new direction.
While it’s no new 11 Dreams, Architect of Lies is still a great release.
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