HARDWARES

Wow. Years of experience for Denmark's Mercenary have now landed the band on the right label for things to happen, as well as with the right record to push them well up the metal ranks. 11 Dreams is perfect, Mercenary locating - much credit to Raunchy and Hatesphere producer Jacob Hanson - a huge, down-tuned air-sucking guitar sound, full-bodied bass, a challenging array of textures, and most impressively massive, pure metal vocals of about four types, including oddly super-powerful death, heart-wrenching clean, Patton-technical and a beautiful kings of metal roar, much of the heft obtained by exquisite, inspiring multi-tracking. Daring to use keyboards often, and like true stars, not afraid to try a dark progressive ballad or two or three, Mercenary have a masterpiece on their hands, one that recalls emotional, nearly personality-altering highs from the likes of Soilwork, Hypocrisy, Children Of Bodom, Dark Tranquillity, Rapture, In Flames, and most enigmatically, creamy wall of sound bits from Devin Townsend. But to my mind, it's the Rapture influence that emanates (mostly abstractly) from this thing, Mercenary sounding heavingly Finnish, drop-dead professional in every nook and cranny, fully aware of the insane competition in the crowded melodic death metal minefield. This deserves Mastodon-like hype, or at least the attention afforded Soilwork.