The Hours That Remain

Mercenary's 2008 album, Architect of Lies, with its great blend of melody and raw aggression combined with innovative and catchy songwriting, has become one of my melodic death metal mainstays. I've found that once I get really into one of a band's albums, it serves as a sort of beachhead from which I can easily explore the rest of their catalog. In this case, I have recently gotten into their previous 2006 album, The Hours That Remain.

Two things immediately strike you about The Hours That Remain. One is that it is almost devoid of harsh vocals and is consequently not much more extreme than a DragonForce album. Mercenary is between harsh vocalists on this album, so Mikkel Sandager, who did the clean vocals on Architect as well as earlier albums, does double duty here. So The Hours That Remain doesn't benefit from having two vocalists like its successor or the band's earlier work. But Sandager nonetheless does a fantastic job in his singing and takes the album in a  more polished, melodic, (dare I say it) "poppy" direction. And it works. One other lineup thing to note: the bass on this album is played by none other than Jacob Hansen, who was the vocalist on a certain other Danish metal album I immensely enjoy.

The other thing is that this album is ten minutes longer than Architect of Lies at 62 minutes, despite having the same number (ten) songs. Doing the math, this means each song is on average a minute longer, allowing the band to take their time in their epic compositions (two of which span over eight minutes) and play plenty of guitar solos. The production on the album is excellent, with a reverb-heavy (and just plain heavy) guitar sound similar to Dream Evil, but for how polished the album sounds it feels as raw as a Mercenary album should.

The opening song "Redefine Me" is a good, relatively succinct musical summary of the style of this album. The guitarists cycle through an arsenal of riffs, including a slow arhythmic one with keyboard melodies sneaking underneath in the verses and a fantastic, ultra-melodic riff with the kind of guitar strumming/bass pedal synchronization that is more easily experienced than described. So experience it!

Another highlight is song #5, "Lost Reality", the first of the two epic-length songs. Its main riff has a strong synth melody over/roughly following an equally melodic guitar riff. The effect of the guitar-and-synth cooperation along with Sandager's notably impassioned vocals is spine-tingling, dramatic, and cathartic. It's not exactly an epic in the progressive sense, as there are no clear divisions of the song into parts, but there are plenty of gear changes in riffs, vocal sections, and moods. This has become one of my favorite Mercenary songs.

As one more case study, see the second epic/final/title track, "The Hours That Remain". Nothing radically different about it: again heavily focused on clean vocals, with a strong, driving main riff exhibiting strong guitar/bass drum synchronization. The tempo is (relatively) slower, though, and relatively steady; it sounds almost like a combination of "This Black and Endless Never" and "Public Failure Number One" from Architect, with a slower, more expansive chorus reminiscent of "Execution Style". (Remember, though, that this song came first) Once again, just give it a listen and it might take your breath away.

Lyrically, like Mercenary's other work this album takes a break from mythology and dragons for more abstract lyrics about personal tensions and inner struggles. Though they are written poetically enough to connect with just about anyone, they don't come across as "emo", partly because the music is quintessentially European metal and partly because of Sandager's superb vocal performance on both fronts. He is as passionate and powerful in his singing as the best, and even his harsh vocals, heard for the only time on this album, are pretty nice and underrated. This album is "poppy" in that it is rather more focused on the vocals than most melodeath, but this is hardly a bad thing with how well it works.

This is almost, almost, my favorite Mercenary album. Perhaps even more than its successor, it succeeds wildly at being ultra-melodic and intensely heavy, not trading off but in a simultaneous metallic cocktail. What this looks like in practice is songs built on a solid, head-bang-worthy foundation of dual guitar and keyboard riffs, and some of the best vocals of their career. My main criticisms of it are that while it has some very strong songs like the above ones, it also has several relatively forgettable ones (that may just be overshadowed by the good ones), and while Mercenary does work admirably well with one vocalist, that fact certainly doesn't do them any favors. While this album isn't as good as Architect of Lies in my view, it seems to lay down a lot of the raw material that is machined and polished into its successor album, and has managed to give me a great time over many listens.