Mercyless

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Mercyless
General information
origin Mulhouse , France
Genre (s) Death metal , thrash metal
founding 1987 as Merciless
Website http://macprod.chez.com/pages/chmerc.html
Current occupation
Max Otero
Matthieu Merklen
Laurent Michalak
Electric guitar
 Gautier Merklen
former members
Drums
 Pierre Abeillon
Electric bass
 Boris Mandavis
Drums
 Gerald Guenzi
Electric guitar
 Stéphane Viard
Electric bass
 Rade Radojcic
Electric bass
 Didier Strentz
Electric bass
 Pierre Lopez
Drums
 David Kempf
Tom Smith
Drums
 Tintin

Mercyless is a French death and thrash metal band from Mulhouse , which was founded in 1987 under the name Merciless .

history

The band was founded in 1987 under the name Merciless and consisted of the singer and guitarist Max Otero, the guitarist Stephane Viard, the bassist Boris Mandavis and the drummer Gerald Guenzi. In the following years the band made the first demo recordings : Immortal Harmonies (1988) and Visions of the Past (1989). Jungle Hop became aware of the band through the demo Vanishing Nausea from 1990 . At that time, the label built a new metal label called Virulence Records , which featured the band's first single. In 1990 she also contributed the song Without Christ to the sampler Total Virulence from the same label. After that, the band changed their name to Mercyless, as there was already a Swedish band of the same name . A little later, Rade Radojcic joined the line-up as the new bass player. In 1992 the group signed a contract with Vinyl Solutions . The debut album Abject Offerings was released in the same year . The sound carrier was produced and mixed by Colin Richardson . The release was followed by two European tours , one with Death and Anacrusis and another with Morgoth , Tiamat , Samael and Unleashed . The group also held performances in France with Cannibal Corpse , Obituary , Hypocrisy , Loudblast , Agressor , SUP , Desultory and Massacra . The following year, the second album Colored Funeral was released via Century Media . On the third album COLD from 1996 you can hear Pierre Lopez as the new bass player and David Kempf as the new drummer and Tom Smith as the keyboardist. After a long break, the album Sure to Be Pure followed in 2000 . Tintin can be heard as the new drummer, but who was possibly just a drum machine . The album was recorded back in 1996 and the group had been on hiatus since 1998 after touring Spain . It wasn't until 2011 that the band was revived. In the same year the compilation In Memory of Agrazabeth , which consists of all demos, test recordings and live material, was released, before the album Unholy Black Splendor was released in 2013 via Trendkill Recordings , which was mastered by Dan Swanö .

style

According to Allmusic's Eduardo Rivadavia , the band initially played death metal with horror and anti-Christian lyrics. Abject Offerings is comparable to the material from Pestilence , before their Progressive Death Metal phase, and Morgoth . The songs on Colored Funeral would be more varied than on the previous one. COLD is less oriented towards Death Metal and more towards Progressive Metal . The band was influenced by groups like Pestilence, Cynic and Atheist . Sure to Be Pure has influences from Post-Thrash and Nu Metal . According to Martin Popoff in his book The Collector's Guide of Heavy Metal Volume 3: The Nineties , the band plays on Colored Funeral Thrash Metal, which mixes blast beats with the groove of Slayer . The group sounds like a German or like a band from the east coast of the United States . Oliver Recker assigned the band to death and thrash metal in an extra edition of Metal Hammer . The style does not sound French, Floridan or English . In an interview with Recker, Max Otero stated that the members hardly listen to Death Metal. Testimony of the Ancients by Pestilence and Human by Death are his favorite Death Metal albums. Otherwise the members would hear artists like The Sisters of Mercy , Mike Oldfield , Ministry and Die Einstürzende Neubauten . According to Sonja Angerer from Metal Hammer , technically demanding Thrash Metal is played on COLD and they have moved away from their Death Metal roots. In the songs there are “melodic prog rock chants and soft keyboard surfaces of almost heartbreaking beauty” that would dampen “the spiked aggressiveness”. The band is reminiscent of the early Savatage as well as King's X and High Power . According to Thorsten Zahn from the same magazine, Sure to Be Pure has "[s] pounding, machine-like beats , technoid guitars, brutal vocal tracks, atmospheric [SIC!] Keyboard surfaces and a fat production". After a while, however, the singing sounds very simple-minded and is only occasionally loosened up by spoken passages. In addition, Otero occasionally tries to sound like Jonathan Davis . An influence from bands like Fear Factory and Sepultura can also not be ignored.

Discography

as Merciless
  • 1988: Immortal Harmonies (demo, self-published)
  • 1989: Visions from the Past (demo, self-published)
  • 1990: Vomiting Nausea (demo, self-published)
  • 1990: Vomiting Nausea / No Theory (single, Virulence Records )
as mercyless

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b MERCYLESS (FRANCE). demoarchives.com, accessed February 8, 2015 .
  2. ^ Various - Total Virulence. Discogs , accessed February 8, 2015 .
  3. ↑ a b c Eduardo Rivadavia: Mercyless. Allmusic , accessed February 8, 2015 .
  4. ↑ a b Info. Facebook , accessed February 13, 2015 .
  5. ↑ Martin Popoff : The Collector's Guide of Heavy Metal Volume 3: The Nineties . Collectors Guide Ltd, Burlington, Ontario, Canada 2007, ISBN 978-1-894959-62-9 , pp. 274 .
  6. ↑ Oliver Recker: Mercyless . Show No Mercy. In: Metal Hammer Extra Thrash . No. 2 , 1992, p. 59 .
  7. ↑ Sonja Angerer: Mercyless . Cold. In: Metal Hammer . May 2000, p. 99 .
  8. ↑ Thorsten Zahn: Mercyless . Sure to Be Pure. In: Metal Hammer . December 2000, p. 89 .