The tale of France’s Mercyless has been told before on these pages so I don’t want to recount the saga of their rise, fall from grace, and eventual redemption. I will however endlessly blather on about how great their early releases are. 1992s Abject Offerings was a top-notch example of furious thrashing death metal with chops to spare. However, it was 93s Coloured Funeral that cemented their legacy, taking their brutish bashing and smartly seasoning it with the progressive energy of mid-period Death. It’s technical and intelligent, full of twists and turns, but the war hammer is ever-present. It’s a deeply underappreciated classic that deserves far more attention. Since reforming in 2011, Mercyless have released 3 albums of good to very good old school death, no longer pushing boundaries and content to rehash the glories of the early 90s. 2020’s The Mother of All Plagues was an entirely solid if not exceptional blast of familiar deathery, harkening back to the stuff I harassed dormmates with in my drunken college years. 2024 sees them return with 8th full-length Those Who Reign Below, and Mercyless remain locked in their late-career comfort zone, delivering 90s-centric thrashing death in the vein of old Pestilence and Morbid Angel. Can these olde dawgs still bring the war to your front door?
At this point in their resurgence, Mercyless are a known quantity. You get meat n’ taters death with heaping helpings of thrashing fury and enough technical know-how to make things interesting. There’s nothing new to what Mercyless are doing here, but they know how to clobber and cudgel nonetheless. Opener “Extreme Unction” is the nastiest filth on offer and it hits like a concrete truck flying down a steep hill. The riff phrasing bears the stench of vintage Morbid Angel and original vocalist/guitarist Max Otero has a death croak rather similar to that of David Vincent. The speed and savagery are spot on and the guitar work is very good. This is Merycless at their best and they can still kill it. While the quality of songcraft doesn’t remain at this elevated level, you still get crop-dusted by burly thrashers like “I Am Hell” where bits of Vader slam into Behemoth and Angel Corpse. Both “Thy Resplendent Inferno” and “Prelude to Eternal Darkness” check all the 90s death thrash boxes, being invigorating if not gobsmacking nuggets of fugly noise.
Those Who Reign Below by MERCYLESS
There are a few cuts that underperform too. “Phantoms of Cain” is generic in structure and leaves me unfulfilled despite reminding me of a basket of death deplorables I loved back in the day. The inclusion of a 2-minute instrumental and a dull outro pads out the runtime without enhancing the listening experience, and closer “Sanctus Deus Mortis” weaves early days Death influences throughout, but it doesn’t have much of a payoff. At a trim 42-plus minute with most songs in the 3-4 minute window, Those Who Reign Below moves at a brisk pace and rarely drags. It just doesn’t soar often enough.
Max Otero and Gautier Merklen are very skilled six-string assassins and the riffage is consistently solid throughout. The solos are varied and slick and the duo borrows from all the best legendary acts as they burn and loot the countryside. I especially like it when they venture into Azagthothian slitherscapes, which is common here. I’ve been a fan of Otero’s vocals since the beginning and they’re still good and grisly today. Johann Voirin (Mortuary) tags in to man the kit and does a great job skinning the skins and scraping the brain wax from your ears with a thunderous performance. I often found myself more focused on what he was doing than everything else, which is unusual for me.
Mercyless will never recapture the elusive magic heard on Coloured Funeral but I’m more than happy to see them churning out albums of the caliber. Those Who Reign Below won’t top many best-of lists this year but it’s a competent, effective death metal biscuit with enough frills and chills in the meat gravy to hold its place in the rotation for a while. Well worth a brutal spin.
Rating: 3.0/5.0
DR: 6 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Osmose Productions | Bandcamp1
Websites: mercyless.bandcamp.com2 | facebook.com/mercylesscult | instagram.com/mercylessofficial
Releases Worldwide: October 25th, 2024
Dolphyless
Mercyless is far from a household name, as are many from the short-lived French death/thrash scene.3 But the olde and wise like legendary AMG alum Al Kikuras heard their fabled Coloured Funeral back in the days of wound magnetic tape and FM radio as a major discovery tool. Yes, it’s true the 90s weren’t kind to acts of all varieties, with Mercyless too succumbing to the pressures of groove and hiatus. Yet with their revitalization in the modern age, the French underground stalwart has managed to both impress and remain solid in their golden years. In a back-to-basics move, Those Who Reign Below serves as both an ode to the lords of the underworld and an outing of classic death metal from a time when genre lines were but a suggestion.
Sharing fresh blood with Mortuary—another aged French act revitalized in this modern era—this current version of Mercyless continues to tackle death metal with a thrash-rooted flair alongside ears who grew up with Mercyless’ contemporaries. More so than their original run (really their first two albums), Mercyless has picked up some of the low-end grooves you’d hear in late 90s Morbid Angel (“Crown of Blasphemy,” “Sanctus Deus Mortis”) along with a jagged melodicism that fed into increased aggression of early Hate Eternal works (“Phantoms of Cain”). But as a band born of a certain time, it’s hard to escape that early Celtic Frost influenced death/thrash that powered primal Florida bruisers Master or Obituary, with heavy skanks and ragged vocals leading the charge (“I Am Hell,” “Prelude to Eternal Darkness”). And still, that same gritty sense of harmony that composed Mercyless’ career highlights presents itself through founder Max Otero’s chunky guitar charms (“Thy Resplendent Inferno,” “Chaos Requiem”).
While a falling out of interest with deathly happenings drove Mercyless into hibernation all those years ago, Otero and co. have no lost love, at this stage, for ugly tones that carve monster riffs. With dialed incision whammy dives, tracks that rip from the start (“I Am Hell”), or find a fluttering catch in wild solo land (“Evil Shall…,” “Crown of Blasphemy”), have no problem rolling back eyes and flaring nostrils for a fully-torqued pit frenzy. A fuzzy twang provides weight to each riff embarkment, allowing techier expeditions (“Extreme Unction,” “Phantoms…”) to land with a precision that plays off the force of drummer Johann Voirin’s textbook accelerating kicks and pounding snare drive. On the low-end bassist Yann Tligui doesn’t provide the same depth of performance that popped about in the distant past, but his gravely throb provides a grit necessary to ensure that Mercyless wrecks bodies in a circular, tumbling fashion.
However, Mercyless’ increased theater around anti-Christian themes hinders Those Who Reign Below’s more direct offerings. Though Mercyless has never shied away from elements that spit at Christianity, their renaissance from 2013’s Unholy Black Splendor has increased its upfront presence. And, likewise, Those Who Reign Below finds itself the holder of both a built in liturgical intro (the first section of “Extreme Unction”) and an unannounced—but still present—closing modulated sermon (“Zecheriah 31”) to reinforce its ham-fisted camp. This book-ending also creates an awkward framing around the true closer, “Sanctus Deus Mortis,” which runs preceded by a low-in-tension instrumental (“Absurd Theater”). These blunders, though, don’t tack much time onto the total run of forty-two minutes, so they are forgivable. But those looking for a steady blaze from snout to tail may encounter more of an ending fizzle than desired.
Regardless, Mercyless harbors too high a quality of hammering riff, slobbering shout death metal in its unlikely second-coming—a length of time that now spans as many albums and almost as many years as the first. In many ways, this new path of old sounds represents a more fitting distillation of Mercyless’ evil worshipping ambitions than its detour into weird 90s industrial death land.4 For those easily moistened by the call of a sweat-stewed pit, Those Who Reign Below offers a practiced and visceral window into an aged like fine jerky take on rippin’ death/thrash. So give it a listen and be sure to hit the classics too—Abject Offerings and Coloured Funeral—if you’re new to Mercyless’ ancient callings.
Rating: 3.0/5.0
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