MERCILESS
REVIEWER – GRAEME WRIGHT
The first all African-American Heavy Metal band is considered to be Black Death, a band who were formed in 1977 and one that released their first album in 1984. Although they were considered to be a bit of a novelty act when they first hit the scene, it soon became clear that the band (who were influenced by The Scorpions and Judas Priest) could rock it out with the best of them. The band who first made a splash in the genre however are Body Count. Fronted by Rap superstar Ice-T, the band quickly courted controversy with their self titled debut album to the extent that the song ‘Cop Killer’ was ultimately removed from the record because the band felt the outrage around the lyrics took away from the quality of the rest of the album. The band grew up listening to the likes of Black Sabbath and were adamant their music would be pure Heavy Metal rather than any form of Rap/Metal crossover.
‘Merciless’ is the bands eighth record and is light years away from their debut record. High quality production, big songs and the ability to retain their aggression and anger means that yet again this is superb stuff.
Despite losing three of their original members to both cancer and a drive-by shooting, the band are both still relevant and committed to their Metal mission as this is a fine album full of impressive modern songs and containing a cover version that will live long in the memory. The songs operate around a variety of themes and relevant issues, including gun violence, people who blindly follow one political party rather than truly following the issues, as well as an exciting paean to the Purge movies.
From the opening angry bars of ‘Merciless’ which hits you straight between the eyes, through to the storytelling majesty of the exciting ‘Purge’, it’s clear the band still mean business. ‘Fuck What You Heard’ tells people to travel down a rabbit hole to find the truth around world events rather than believing the party line (Ice-T has always travelled a straight line politically rather than committing to one single party.) The band had always loved the bass line from Pink Floyds ‘Comfortably Numb’ and Ice-T had rewritten the lyrics to fit in with todays societal problems. They thought there was no chance it would be approved, but once Dave Gilmour had heard the song he was that enthused that he offered to play on the record, so there you have it, one of the best cover versions in living memory. Although this is probably the song this album will be remembered for, in reality it’s just a great album and one of the best pure Metal albums of the year. Highly recommended.
BAND
Ice-T – Vocals
Ernie C – Guitars
Juan Garcia – Guitars
Sean E. Sean – Samples
Vincent Price – Bass
Will Dorsey – Drums
Little Ice – Backing Vocals
ALBUM TRACK LIST
1. Interrogation
2. Merciless
3. Purge
4. Psychopath
5. Fuck What You Heard
6. Live Forever
7. Do Or Die
8. Comfortably Numb
9. Lying Motherfuka
10. Drug Lords
11. World War
12. Mic Contrac
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