Unmercifully Beaten

I'm usually not a huge fan of brutal death metal. The only bands from the genre that I listen to on a regular basis are Suffocation and Deeds of Flesh, and I can't stand bands like Brain Drill, Hate Eternal, or Krisiun. I wasn't expecting a whole lot from this album because I'd seen Unmerciful a couple of times live (as they are a local group for me) and they never struck me as anything particularly new or inventive. But I stumbled across this album in the bargain bin at the used record store and thought it might be worth a shot.

I wasn't surprised by what I heard - this is pretty cookie-cutter standard brutal death metal, with a plethora of blast beats, downtuned guitars, and gutteral vocals. It's not remotely innovative or creative. It even has members of Origin in it, and I don't like Origin at all. In other words, there's no real reason I should like this. But for some reason I actually like it a lot.

The truth is that, despite its fairly generic sound, there are a lot of little details that make Unmercifully Beaten stand out against an overcrowded sea of brutal death. First, of course, is the heavy Suffocation influence. This is almost always a good thing, and this album is no exception. However, Unmerciful do a few things that set them apart from Suffocation's style. Firstly, most of the guitar riffs are surprisingly tonal and hummable, which makes them catchy and easy to remember. It's a testament to a death metal band's songwriting skill when I've only listened to an album two or three times and I already could probably hear any random riff from the album and tell you the song name. Secondly, Tony Ruest's lead vocals are a bit more comprehensible than Frank Mullen's, and I think being able to mostly understand the words helps the listener to better enjoy the atmosphere of the music. Also, the bass functions fairly independently of the guitars. It never veers off into DiGiorgio-esque jazzy stuff, but the bass consistently provides a contrasting melodic interest to the riffs. Alex Webster from Cannibal Corpse plays the bass for "Shotgun Sodomy," but Unmerciful's other members, who shared bass duties on the album, are no slouches at the instrument either.

That leads me to my first problem with the CD: The bass is mixed too quiet on the songs not featuring Webster. It's not inaudible, but when you can tell that the bassist is doing something cool, but can't quite hear what it is, then it's too quiet. The rest of the songs should have the bass as loud as it is on "Shotgun Sodomy."
Also, the drumming is pretty uninteresting - it's pretty much constant blast beats. But that can be forgiven when the riffage over it is so interesting. Lastly, I don't really see the point of the live tracks they tacked on the end of the album. The cover of Suffocation's "Catatonia" is pretty cool but the other two songs are just live recordings of tracks that already appear on the album, and they don't sound appreciably different in the live setting. Instead, they just feel like filler material that the band threw in to make the album long enough to seem like a full-length and not like an EP. I would have preferred they write a few more new songs.

However, most of my complaints are minor, and for the four dollars I paid for it, Unmercifully Beaten is quite a steal. It's definitely worth checking out if you like brutal death metal.

What do you get when you put Deeds Of Flesh, Decrepit Birth and Origin into a blender? Besides splattered guts, skin and a sea of blood you get Unmerciful and their first Full Lenght release 'Unmercifully Beaten'. The skills of this band are frightening, the riff molestations and the breaks spine breaking. There are many, many, and even more bands, that sound like the 3 aforementioned bands from the brutal genre, but when you put in Unmerciful, after a few minutes you will be sure that this band is one of those, that can incorporate their own inventiveness and skills into the efforts. The first song will wake you up from the deepest dreams, and open your eyes for a new dimension of total annihilation and brutality. Who tries to headbang to this, to do a windmill, will just fucking need either a new neck, or a new head AND neck! This is simply to brutal to do anything but just nodding and getting lunatic

In Unmerciful's sound you can find certain similarities with Decrepit Birth and Origin, especially in the arrangements and breakdowns. And the fact that Unmerciful consists/ed of ex-Origin members will just prove that this band means business. It's simply the grooviness of Origin and their brutal approach and Decrepit Birth's technical finesses. The title track is a real Origin blaster. But "Mass Execution" is the track which should remind you who's your daddy - Deeds Of fucking Flesh. It's as if Mike Hamilton sat behind the drums, and Erik took the guitar into his hands and just started grinding chord after chord. John Longstreth, eat your heart out! Someone just grab that guy, rip his heart through his chest. "Seething Darkness" I can only describe (besides killfuckrapemurdermutilate) as a mix of Hate Eternal and Deeds Of Flesh. There is only power in that song, and brutality times 10. I should mention that Alex Webster (Cannibal Corpse) played the bass lines on "Shotgun Sodomy". Also the artwork is classical Unique Leader one - sick and 'piercing', see for yourself.

This band shall lead Unique Leader Records right to the top of the Brutal Death Metal throne again, where they are ruling and being kings for a long time, since they spawned all those murder bands like Disavowed, Spawn of Possession, Pyaemia, Psycroptic and all the other sickos. I bet if Suffocation ever had signed Unique Leader, they would be blasting the shit out now. Unmerciful also come up with a cover of Suffocation's "Catatonia", from the 'Despise the Sun' release. And trust me, this cover is no less good and killing than Suffocation's recording back then. Including this kickass cover, Unmerciful serve us 2 live recordings of "Shotgun Sodomy" and "Legion of Sickness", and they prove on those 2 live tracks to be live as brutal as on CD. You just can't fuck around with this band, they will tear your bitchy little as into pieces.