"There's a lot to like on this album for all different types of metalheads."

Follow up:

9/10

1. "New Desire" - 4:57
2. "Bloodsong" - 4:47
3. "Embrace the Nothing" - 4:51
4. "This Black and Endless Never" - 5:40
5. "Isolation (The Loneliness in December)" - 6:03 Watch the video!
6. "The Endless Fall" - 5:08
7. "Black and Hollow" - 4:50
8. "Execution Style" - 5:50
9. "I Am Lies" - 5:43
10. "Public Failure Number One" - 5:00

"Architect of Lies" is the fifth album by the Danish band Mercenary and the third one since they've been signed to Century Media. It's got shrieking, growling, catchy choruses, powerful riffs, perfectly executed keyboards, and hard hitting monsters of tracks. There's a lot to like on this album for all different types of metalheads.

The sound on the album is an acquired taste. It's made to sound heavy and to that degree the production is a large success. However the sacrifice made for that is that it sounds very bottom heavy and at times can distort on the low end. Obviously the fix for that is to turn it down but with such awesome tunes, who wants to do that?! Also, I noticed that the high end tends to get washy. There's a lot of things fighting for space in the higher frequencies and gets to be a mess when the drummer is wailing on the cymbals. Mind you the album doesn't have an overall BAD sound to it, rather it sounds like there was a strong middle frequency cut put on the mix.

"Architect of Lies" sees the Danes taking the Progressive yet heavy style they've developed largely since 2004's "11 Dreams" and added a good bit of Thrash to the mix. The album has a few killer hard hitting tracks like "This Black and Endless Never", "Execution Style" and "The Endless Fall". These tracks have a bit of Nevermore and/or Darkane influence to them. The album is not without it's catchy choruses though as the opener "New Desire" and the closer "Public Failure Number One" have that "harmonies so deep you get lost in them" sound that Mercenary has been known for. There's not a single song on the album that I would skip over. They're all great.

The band have a lot of skill and they show it off very well within these 10 tracks. Mikkel has a very wide range as he can go from lows to Halford level highs and growl in-between. There's plenty of flashy, technical guitar work on the album but it never feels like the song is meant to showcase one instrument over another. The keyboards are always present and play such good counterpart to the guitars. It makes me wish that more bands utilized keys and synths to such an impressive degree. There's no real keyboard solos to speak of but if you were to take the keys away, the song loses a lot of its flavor. All the tracks are written to showcase the entire band working together to create something awesome.

This album deserves your attention if you're in the progressive/power, Thrash or Melodic/Death metal camps. It offers up a variety of tracks that will satisfy a large group of metalheads including myself. These guys have talent for writing great albums and I hope to continue listening to many more Mercenary albums in the future. Check this one out. You won't be disappointed.

Links

Mercenary on Myspace
Mercenary's official website
Buy the album

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