Mercenary - The Hours That Remain
- Released: 2006
- Label: Century Media
- Rating:
If you have never heard of Mercenary, you are certainly causing yourself a great deal of injustice. Their previous album, 11 Dreams, is not only essential to any metal collection, it’s an essential part of your metal growth. “11 Dreams” somehow combined prog, power, death, black, thrash, and even somehow pop of all things, into a giant mish-mash of an album. Ordinarily, this would be a complete catastrophe, resulting in metalheads vomiting in terror all around the globe. Not that time. Mercenary somehow pulled it off and not only released a killer album, but one of my faves of all time. Needless to say, when I heard they were releasing a new album, my expectations shot as high as the moon. There was no way the band could possibly live up to my expectations, and maybe even (gasp) top 11 dreams.
Or could they?
No, they could not.
It’s a crying shame, I know. To all you Mercenary fans and even just music fans in general, I apologize for what I’m about to say because it DOES hurt. This album blows. It doesn’t just blow though. It also sucks, stinks and fornicates with pigs.
Actually, maybe I’m being too hard on it. The album is not without its merits, but as a whole, it’s definitely missing alot of what made 11 Dreams so special. However I can see certain people liking this. Allow me to explain.
Mercenary has taken the path that so many of our beloved death metal bands have taken before. Along with In Flames, Soilwork, and Children of Bodom, Mercenary have officially gone modern. As a result, the album is not what it should have been. The band has sacrificed alot of its edge and balls for a lighter and more people-friendly sound. This album should not be compared to the likes of 11 Dreams, Back to Times of Splendor, or Mabool, but rather to The End of Heartache or The Stings of Consciousness. It’s sad to see such a giant metal monster make such a terrible fall from grace.
The album makes use of both clean and shrieking vocals, with a surprising emphasis on clean vocals this time around. On the previous album we found that clean was balanced equally with the death vocals. On this album, however, the clear vocals dominate most of the album. Gone are the days of the low death growls found on their previous albums. They have been replaced strictly with the more popular hardcore shrieks. Mikkel still gives a solid and powerful performance and indeed, on some parts of the album, his voice gave me chills. Overall, it’s still much weaker than before.
The mix-matching of subgenres is still seen on this album but to a MUCH smaller degree. Mercenary pretty much plays it safe on The Hours That Remain and mainly stick to one formula and one style. What I liked so much about their past works was their progression – the songs were always changing. It wasn’t always just verse, chorus, verse, chours, solo, repeat; their songs always had unpredictable things in them. On The Hours That Remain I find absolutely no progression. It mainly follows the predictable and dried out modern formula, and that is boring.
The album has its highlights though. The opener “Redefine Me” is simply awesome. There are absolutely no hints of a modern sound and it is truly powerful, although slightly repetitive. From there it all goes wrong. “Year Of The Plague” is just straight-up metalcore. You’ll know exactly what I mean before the first minute passes. I just can’t stand this track. It sounds immature and is just not Mercenary. “My World Is Ending” is notable for its catchiness, but can you get any poppier? The only pop element found on 11 Dreams was the cover song. Here, pop runs abundant from this track out. The rest of the tracks have all faded from memory so I couldn’t tell you anything about them and I listened to this whole album a good 4 times. That should tell you something. I just remember thinking to myself throughout the rest of the album “too poppy”, “too core”, “too stale”, and so forth. However, the final track serves as an eye-opener; it is truely mind-blowing and easily the best song on the album. It’s grandiose in its execution and just engulfs me each time I listen to it. It’s catchy as hell too which doesn’t hurt. I love everything about this track from the riffs to the snare drum. The only problem is that they should have ended the song after the fade out. Instead of ending the album on a powerful and good note (which the listener deserves after hearing all the crap before this song) they suddenly fade in a muffled piano melody and Mikkel starts singing in a real whiny, N-Sync voice and that just completely ruined what would have otherwise been…a bang to go out on.
Y’see? Even the album’s redeeming factors have annoyances in them. So, here’s the way I see it. If you liked In Flames and Soilwork’s new albums, then this is the best album of the year for you right here. If you strongly believe that the word metal should never begin with modern or end in core, stay the hell away from this album. If you’re a Mercenary fan and loved 11 Dreams, you will surely be disappointed. As for me, I am highly pissed off and annoyed and I feel that 2 great tracks do not merit anything more than a two and a thumbs down on my part. It’s terrible to see what our great bands have become. Oh well, I’ve never been that big of an In Flames fan anyways.
Brent C. | 08/18/2006