(Andy Synn catches up with a band who we haven’t checked in with in quite a while)
Change, as they say, is the one universal constant. But that doesn’t mean that change is always good. Or, at least, it’s not always perceived (or received) that way.
Case in point, following the departure of the Sandagger brothers in 2009 Mercenary were – rightly or wrongly – criticised for, ahem, metamorphosing from the distinctive Prog/Power/Death Metal hybrid they used to be into a more groove-focussed, Metalcore-ish “Nu-Melodeath” act in the vein of bands like Caliban, Deadlock, etc.
Much of the blame was placed, unfairly, on bassist (and now primary vocalist) René Pedersen – mostly, it seemed, because his singing style was supposedly less “epic” and more “emo” than his predecessor – even though the core guitar duo of Jakob Mølbjerg and Martin Buus (who have, at the time of writing this, now been playing together for over twenty years!) remained unchanged.
But the truth of the matter is that there was no one person responsible for the band’s downturn in fortunes, it’s simply that, for a while, they didn’t seem to know quite who they were, or who they wanted to be, any more.
But on their new album Mercenary sound more like… well, Mercenary… than they have in years!
