MERCENARY — 11 Dreams (review)

Album · 2004 · Melodic Death Metal

4/5 · 2021-12-18
UMUR

"11 Dreams" is the 3rd full-length studio album by Danish metal act Mercenary. The album was released through Century Media Records in August 2004. It´s the successor to "Everblack" from 2002 and features two lineup changes since the predecessor as lead guitarist Signar Petersen has been replaced by Martin Buus and drummer Rasmus Jakobsen has been replaced by Mike Park. "11 Dreams" was generally well received and gave Mercenary an international breakthrough...

...and it´s obvious why that is when listening to the album. Compared to the band´s preceding releases there´s just so much more quality on display on "11 Dreams". This is the sound of a confident act who know that they´ve created something speciel.

The material on "11 Dreams" are stylistically a combination of power metal, progressive metal, and melodic death metal, with a few symphonic metal moments thrown in for good measure. Mercenary are both skilled composers and performers, and they seamlessly make all the stylistic elements work within their sound. The melodic death metal element of the band´s sound is mostly found in the guitar work and sometimes the rhythms as this is predominantly quite heavy and dark power metal. There aren´t that many growling vocals on the album, and clean vocalist Mikkel Sandager are given most room to shine, with growling vocalist/bassist Henrik "Kral" Andersen takes the backseat (although he does perform lead vocals on longer sections like he does on "Supremacy v2.0"). It´s arguably a good choice as Sandager has a strong voice and a varied delivery. He can sing both strong clean vocals, but also distort his voice a bit more and deliver screaming high pitched aggressive vocals like he does on tracks like "World Hate Center" (doubling with Andersen´s growling vocals) and especially on "Firesoul" (I´m blown away by the power and rawness of his vocals on the first section of that track).

"11 Dreams" is the kind of album which feels like a journey, where all tracks are important and the order of the tracks is important too (even the cover of "Music Non Stop" by Swedish pop/rock act Kent makes sense on the tracklist, and is actually quite a brilliant cover). The layered, dark, and heavy atmopshere is an omnipresent element, but there is good rhythmic variation and even what I would characterize as rhythmic hooks. I found myself tapping my fingers to some of the double bass drum patterns, simply because they add such power and memorability to the music. So new drummer Park definitely deserves a mention. The keyboard work by Morten Sandager (brother of lead vocalist Mikkel) should also be mentioned as it´s clever, tasteful, and sophisticated, bringing the right epic and melancholic atmosphere to the music. "11 Dreams" is also loaded with powerful heavy guitar riffs and melodic lead guitar work, but the layered nature of the music actually means that "11 Dreams" isn´t a riff-centric release. Every instrument and vocal part serve as a means to an end, to make a track work as a whole.

The album features a powerful, detailed, and heavy sounding production job, which suits the material perfectly. Every detail is audible in the mix, and it´s not necessarily an easy job creating a sound like that when the music features so many layers of instruments and vocals. I´ll tip my hat for producer Jacob Hansen. So upon conclusion "11 Dreams" is a high quality hybrid melodic death metal/dark power metal release and a 4 - 4.5 star (85%) rating is deserved.