Summoned as a husk wrapped in smoke stained, eons-leathered flesh and spurred on by the wailing hatred of never-ending conflict Mulhouse, France-based death metal quartet MERCYLESS act as an enduring possessed cult once again bringing to life visions of evil incarnate on this eighth and decidedly ‘old school’ death-thrashing full-length album. ‘Those Who Reign Below‘ naturally re-tunes the long-standing quartet’s ideation of 80’s inspired and early 90’s entrenched death metal toward crueler, more frantically shot pathos as they reinforce their signature and present an increasingly morbid angle at the same time. The riff obsessed classicism found on this record upholds the entirely consistent quality of the band’s post-reformation LPs with a similarly high standard, sure to please existing fandom with a familiar touch while also introducing an approach to death metal which is authentic to their impetus.

Mercyless formed circa 1987 under their original name (Merciless) playing evil thrashing heavy metal that’d changed shape slightly with each of their first three demos and with very little of their work on those tapes translating to the Pestilence-meets-Sinister brilliance of their debut LP in 1992 where they’d created their own high-grade early 90’s brilliance at a level unexpected from the French scene at that time, at least beyond maybe the building efforts of earlier starters like Loudblast and Massacra. I could go on about the band’s history, and I have in the past several times over the years, but in terms of long-standing fandom and general bias their first two LPs make it in my top 50 death metal classics of all time and of course, primarily for the riffs and their exemplar understanding of groove as it translated beyond extreme thrash. In fact I was such a fan that when they’d returned with a new line-up in 2013 and released ‘Unholy Black Splendor‘ it’d ended up at #4 on my Best of 2013 list where, if you don’t recall that’d been an example of real and fitting ‘comeback’ record for a band that’d lost their way and crapped out a decade plus before.

Most of the comeback lineup followed guitarist/vocalist and founder Max Otero for the next two albums ’til ‘The Mother of All Plagues‘ (2020) and the actual pandemic seems to have been both a high point and a reset button for the troupe gathered. Not only did the album review well per my own taste but it’d done well to reinforce the feeling that the band had developed an important signature by 1992 which still carried its passionate attention to detail three decades later. This was still a band dedicated to pure death metal (lets not talk about 1996 and 2000) who not only returned from the grave but stuck to their guns at every turn. This is an important note to take as we pierce the blood-portal to Mercyless eighth album and find they’ve compromised nothing, delivering sharply crafted and riff-centric ‘old school’ death metal with proper skill and fiery attack.

The only expectation I’d had heading in (as a fan) was that some of the classic proto-extreme metal fire of their 2020 covers EP (‘Sovereign Evil‘) was likely going to be a factor in the presentation of this album and the “I Am Hell” single they’d released first echoed this. While a simpler, death-thrashing and wailing approach is a part of that upfront attack there are nine songs to cut through here and they generally run a gamut from skull rattling 80’s death rippers to their snappier early 90’s grooves, all of it feels like a conscious connection between those late 80’s demo tapes and their very pro-level debut. Grimier, distant production values from Raph Henry of Heldscalla Studio were directed toward meaner and uglier underground tonality which enhance this approach as Mercyless intend to reflect the blasphemy and hatred death metal music in classic ideation. This makes for a slightly muddier, quick-footed induction compared to ‘The Mother of All Plagues‘ as well as a more organic level of sound design, fitting the thrashing but wheeling-out pacing of this album as it whips through well-stacked ~4-5 minute death metal songs.

With that sort of sound design and intent in mind guitar tones are prominent but not oppressive allowing a somewhat realistic sense of space and room bleed to enter the drum’s presence, as if the compression on late 80’s death-thrash drums were lifted for the sake of atmospheric space. This’d taken me back to the first Pestilence album in some respect as they chop through the distempered ride-n’-thrash of “Thy Resplendent Inferno” near the middle of the album. The bass chugs in the midst of the main verse riffs, the drums rap and rattle in space in response to quick changes and there is a unique thrill to the skeleton beneath the body of neatly writ guitar interest. Though Mercyless are delivering these songs with some callous, hardened energy the rabid pulse that builds from song to song help to keep the actual moment-to-moment flex of this record from ever feeling like an exercise. In fact as each song eventually finds a moment to slow into a menacing groove we gain a sense for the vernacular of the guitarists and their songcraft, some elements of this are (naturally) repetitive and the attack on this album veers between just a few different levels of blasting and jogging when it comes time to start counting riffs and figuring which ones will stick overall but all of this is, again, well in line with authentic death metal sounds.

With a few heavy whiffs of early Morbid Angel-esque motion stirring up on “Sanctus Deus Mortis” and “Phantoms Of Caïn” I’d assume some of the guest spots (Patrick Bonvin of Near Death Condition and Stephan Baillot of Ritualization) occur somewhere around there. These were some of my favorite moments on the record if only for how developed, multi-tiered they were in their rhythmic reveal. Sidling those songs next to more typical signature Mercyless pieces kept the pacing brisk, brutal and varietal enough to warrant repeated listens and without recreating the general format of the previous LP; Otherwise cover art from Nestor Avalos once again characterizes the band’s work as dark and formidable this time with a Moyen-esque composition which feels like an ancient bestial death record on approach. All things considered these folks have put together a wholly entertaining classics-built death metal record which carries its strength in variety and fiery cuts without necessarily aiming for purely memorable actions throughout. This doesn’t quite overtake ‘Unholy Black Splendor‘ in terms of ranking their comeback era efforts but at this point it comes in at a pretty close second thanks to a thrash-heavy approach and live-feeling production values. A high recommendation.

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