MERCENARY’S ARCHITECT OF LIES ISN’T AS GOOD AS WE’D HOPED, BUT IS STILL PRETTY DARNED’ AWESOME

Power metal, by its very definition, is a pretty cheesy genre, and so I don’t feel one bit embarrassed to tell you that the reason I like Mercenary so much is because of how emotional their music can get. My favorite Mercenary song remains the eight minute epic “Lost Reality” from the band’s last album, 2006’s The Hours That Remain; and although I have no idea what the hell singer Mikkel Sandager is getting at when he cries “Embraces what’s left behind/Forgive my sense of lost reality,” his vocals are so full of palpable longing, and the music behind them soars so very high, that it gets me kinda stirred up inside every time I listen to it.

So, yes, I am a little disappointed with Mercenary’s latest offering, Architect of Lies – mostly because it doesn’t achieve those moments of operatic sublimity nearly so often as its predecessor did. And fans looking for the band to return to the somewhat more raw, less polished (and also, I would argue, less focused) sound of 2004’s 11 Dreams are probably going to feel let down, too.

But here’s the thing: Architect of Lies still kicks major, major ass, and may very well set the bar for all other power metal releases in 2008.

It’s interesting to note that when the band does try to pull off songs in the vein of “Lost Reality,” they show that they’re still totally capable of doing so. Album opener “New Desire,” “Embrace the Nothing,” and “Isolation (The Loneliness in December)” should all tug at the heart strings of even the most hardened metalhead. Rather, it seems as though the band isn’t that interested in doing these kinds of songs this time out, and, more often that not, are resigned to sounding like a Gothenburg band as fronted by Bruce Dickinson.

And you know what? There’s nothing really wrong with that. The riffs that power “Public Failure Number One,” “This Black and Endless Nothing,” and “Black and Hollow” – to name but a few – are monsters, and super-catchy monsters at that. In fact, I haven’t heard an actual Gothenburg band write riffs this good yet this year. And the band itself is killer: Martin Buus’ blistering leads, Morten Sandager’s epic keyboards, and new bassist René Pedersen’s throaty growls all pretty much own your ass.

So maybe I just need to get over my own expectations and accept this album for what it is: a straight-forward ass kicker of a power metal album. It’s not difficult for me to imagine this album growing on me as I give it repeated spins in the coming months. Still, for now, I can’t recommend it as highly as The Hours That Remain, which is kind of a bummer.

(three and a half horns out of five)

-AR