Band:	Mercenary
Album:	11 Dreams
Style:	Melodic death metal, Thrash metal
Release date:	August 23, 2004
A review by:	Malcolm

01. Into The Sea Of Dark Desires (Intro)
02. World Hate Center
03. 11 Dreams
04. reDestructDead
05. Firesoul
06. Sharpen The Edges
07. Supremacy v2.0
08. Music Non Stop [Kent cover]
09. Falling
10. Times Without Changes
11. Loneliness

"Yet another Danish band playing (Modern) Melodic (Thrash) Death Metal" that was my first impression when I received the album, and my expectations was quite low, and even if Niklas Sundin is the man behind the cover art, I wasn't really convinced that this would be so good (I mean, mention a younger MeloDeath band that doesn't have a Sundin cover!?).
And believe me, this album had to be something special otherwise it would have ended up in the bottom of my pile of promos.

Mercenary was formed in the middle of the ´90s, and from the start, today's line-up just contains two members, Kral (Bass & Vocals) and Jacob (Guitars) (today they are Mercenary together with Mikkel Sandager (Vocals), Martin Buus (Guitars), Mike Park (Drums) and Morten Sandager (Keys).
They have three releases behind them, before this one, "Supremacy MCD" in 1996, "First Breath" in 1998 and "Everblack" in 2002.
And now, newly signed with Century Media, they release their third full-length album, "11 Dreams".

As I said earlier, this had to be something special otherwise I wouldn't have reviewed it yet (I know it was released in August, but I didn't receive it from the label until now).
And when I putted it in my stereo and the first track starts, an intro that's just so boring and it's over 1 minute long, damn, this is really boring.
When it's finally over, the opener starts, a song named "World Hate Center", it's a decent song, that gives us both grows and nice clean song, but it's not killer, to be honest, it's kind of boring.

But when song no. 2, the title-track, starts, everything changes; this song is really a killer, in many ways.
First, it's very melodic and it's easy to get stuck in the melodies.
Second, the vocals throughout the whole song is clean, which is not that usual for a MeloDeath band, because it's kind of risky, because "true" fans might loose their interest, but believe me, that makes this song to a masterpiece.

It's easy to hear, after the title-track that these guys really has potential, I mean songs like "reDestructDead", "Supremacy v2.0" and "Loneliness" will make every younger MeloDeath band jealous.
I think that we will have many more albums with Mercenary from Century Media, because they have really found themselves a real diamond here.
With the right back up and staff, this band can be huge.

With a mix of hard and melodic music and both clean and growl vocals, this album is very even, and it's very good.
I can't see that an average MeloDeath fan would find anything to complain about here, this is a real "must-buy" album.
It's surely a future prospect, and I believe that the guys in Mercenary will top this album in the future; they got what it takes.

I'll have to agree with my fellow reviews about the score, as you can see above, those three sites has given "11 Dreams" 90% out of 100%, and I'll do the same, not because they have done that, but because "11 Dreams" really deserves it.

Check Out: "11 Dreams", "reDestructDead", "Music Non Stop" & "Loneliness".