MERCY'S DIRGE - ROMANIA
Live, Raw & Relentless – 2019 – Loud Rage
S= CATALIN DRAGOS
G= New Age>>VLAD NESTERIUC>>New Age – Donkerland, Shadowsong>>EISENROTH [SERBAN NISTOR]
B= DAN CRIHAN
D= MANOLACHE COSMIN-IONUT
The black/death metal band was active between 1991 and 1997 only to throw in the towel after two demos. It was a solo project of Vlad initially. Clepi joined on mike and Leo on the stool. It returned with a self-titled demo in 2018. The band's singer and guitarist were back. Romania-based Mercy's Dirge issued a CD version of the Live, Raw & Relentless album in collaboration with Loud Rage Music in the spring of 2019.
MERCY'S DIRGE - LIVE, RAW AND RELENTLESS - LOUD RAGE MUSIC
This Romanian quintet's debut was first released 27 years after the band was first formed and re-released by Loud Rage in 2018, one year after the initial self-release. This 57-minute, 11-song album features several songs written back in the '90s. Remains Of Posterity is the shortest song at just over three minutes and gets right down to business with traditional or old school black metal. It is like a chaotic Venom taking cues from early Marduk. The songs only get longer after the opener and slower or heavier rather than faster sections are inevitable. The raw in the album title is true to form. Screaming Catalin "Clepi" Dragos contributes to the older black metal sound of Mercy's Dirge. Foreseeing The Past is doing its best to carry the torch of the earliest of the genre. Devilish Wish starts with a thrashier riff but mostly reverts to a slightly more varied black metal song, one that even includes a few clean vocals verses. Another Hell is one the band's older songs. In The Name Of... starts with a basic low paced heavy section and then moves into simple and faster riffing. Owing to its over six minute length some (minimal) variation is again unsurprising. The Bewitched is another long one, it is again heavy and slow to start. It is not really all that distinguishable from the song before it. Unholy Doom Creation refers to Live, Raw And Relentless itself? Thrashy riffing mixes well enough with the black metal setting of the album. Groovin' Terror is groovy! It is again perhaps too similar to the song before it. Incur Pulpit delivers more thrashy riffs. The black metal feel is somehow never lost. Meherat continues in the same vein, it probably doesn't need the clean verses while the brief solo is somewhat surprising. Senseless Agony closes the album and features a perplexing change in vocal style. There is no indication that this is anybody but Catalin himself. Strange. – Anna Tergel
Mercy's Dirge