Artist: MERCENARY
Album: ARCHITECT OF LIES (CD)

Year: 2008
Media type: CD

After laboursome months of song writing and rehearsing, nerved with countless live performances including a European club headliner tour in 2007, MERCENARY finally set out in autumn 2007 to record their highly anticipated successor to 2006’s “The Hours That Remain” (which was subsequently awarded the Danish Metal award in the category “Album Of The Year”). Right after completing that extensive period of touring and gigs the band entered the studio with master producer Jacob Hansen to the effect that MERCENARY couldn’t help but bring along a lot of the immediacy and and all-consuming vibe that makes their live shows such unforgettable experiences. The result, entitled “Architect Of Lies”, certainly turns out to be MERCENARY’s most spontaneous album to date. The band succeeded to balance the melodic and the dark elements, the catchy and the complex, and can't wait to get out on the live stages and prove it!

In summer 2007, the six-piece played some of the most renowned festivals, among which Bang Your Head and Graspop, to name but a few. For 2008 MERCENARY are summoned to raid the stages of Wacken Open Air and Metal Camp 2008, will headline the Danish 'Headbangers Ball' tour in September '08 and will have supported Megadeth in Denmark in February 2008.

Since vocalist Mikkel Sandager and his brother, keyboardist Morten, joined MERCENARY on the 2002 album Everblack, the band’s former death/thrash style evolved into a more sophisticated blend of ingenious guitar work, rounded off with hauntingly atmospheric keyboards, which new tracks like “Bloodsong” and “Death Connection” (the bonus track on the limited edition) testify in an impressive way. Apart from that, songs like “Isolation” and “Embrace The Nothing”, a mid-tempo hymn par excellence, once again expose the band’s unique feel for a heavily melodic and melancholic songwriting. On “Architect Of Lies” MERCENARY’s line-up is once more completed with two vocalists in their ranks, which provides MERCENARY with the new and wider vocal range of Mikkel's soaring clean vocals and Rene's unbridled aggressive shouts. Altogether, the album reveals a more organic and 'open' production this time with lots of space for each instrument and layer to be discerned, while the whole set-up/arrangement is still heavy as hell.

TRACKLIST CD:

01. New Desire
02. Bloodsong
03. Embrace The Nothing
04. This Black And Endless Never
05. Isolation (The Loneliness In December)
06. The Endless Fall
07. Black And Hollow
08. Execution Style
09. I Am Lies
10. Public Failure Number One

LINE-UP:

Martin Buus - Lead guitars
Mikkel Sandager - Vocals
Rene Pedersen - Bass/Vocals
Mike Park - Drums
Jakob Molbjerg - Guitars
Morten Sandager - Keys