MERCILESS - THE AWAKENING (1990)

The classic debut record by the almighty Merciless on a reissue splatter vinyl from 2015 released on Osmose Productions. “strictly limited” whatever that means, please leave a comment if you know exactly how many copies this splatter version have. As everyone knows this was the very first album Euronymous from Mayhem released on his record label Deathlike Silence Production in 1990.

I really like this reissue because they haven’t changed much of the layout from the original Deathlike Silence vinyl release. They excluded the address to their Polish fanclub and added where the bonus songs where recorded and of course removed the D.S.P. logo, ANTI-MOSH 001 and so on. But they kept the crossed over smiley face with the “No Fun, No Core, No Mosh, No Trends” slogan is left intact as is the insert with a good old fashioned collage. Ever since I started listening to Death Metal I have always been fascinated to look at collages and especially the ones from the early 90’s.

I’m 38 years old and it’s very often that I forget just how young the band members were and still they produced such timeless classics that goes for many bands in the Death/Black Metal genres. On this reissue there’s 4 bonus songs Bestial Death, Pure Hate, The Awakening and Nuclear Attack all recorded live in 1990 at a gig in Uppsala with Entombed and Invocator. They sound absolutely amazing and I really wish there was even more live songs from that gig even if the original brilliant 8 songs (27 min) is enough to be satisfied with the album.

Merciless started 1986 in Strängnäs, Sweden about 90 kilometers from Stockholm and they were one of the first Death/Thrash Metal bands from Sweden. Before being signed to Deathlike Silence Productions they released the demo “Behind The Black Door” in 1987 one of the songs from the 4-song demo appears on "The Awakening" a re-recorded version of Bestial Death. Also on that demo they had their original vocalist Kalle "Kåle" Aurenius  who was replaced in 1987 by longtime vocalist Rogga Petersson.

All 4 songs from the “Realm of the Dark” (1989) demo has been re-recorded at one point by Merciless. 3 of them appears on “The Awakening”: Souls of the Dead, Dreadful Fate and one of their best songs ever in my opinion Realm of the Dead. It wasn’t until their 1994 album “Unbound” that they finally re-recorded the 4th demo song Nuclear Attack was although they used to play it live back then. Even if both demos have been reissued on 7" vinyls in 1998 on Iron Fist Productions it would've been nice if they had included any or both of them on this release but I'm still happy with the 4 live songs.

The first Merciless album I bought was “Unbound” that I got sometime in 1994, that might have been the very first No Fashion Records CD that I ever bought, this was a few months before I discovered Dissection and Marduk. I would say that either "Unbound" or “The Awakening” is my favorite record by Merciless. Even if I really like both "The Treasures Within" (1992) and "Merciless" (2002) albums they aren't as good as those two. Highly recommend that you read the very entertaining Swedish book "Blod, Eld, Död - En Svensk Metalhistoria" by Ika Johannesson and Jon Jefferson Klingberg that will be released in English as "Blood, Fire, Death: The Swedish Metal Story" November this year.

They write about when Euronymous, Dead and Necrobutcher from Mayhem went over to Sweden and visited Merciless at the Tuna Studio in Eskilstuna July of 1989 when "The Awakening" was recorded. There's some other Merciless tales in that book like when guitarist Erik Wallin meet Quorthon from Bathory for the first time at a Kiss concert in 1996. Also that bassist Fredrik Karlén and Erik among others from the Swedish metal scene attended the funeral of Per "Dead" Ohlin in April of 1991.

There even more about Mayhem and Merciless first meeting in another book. One that you all probably are aware of "Swedish Death Metal" by Daniel Ekeroth, there Karlén says that he think Euronymous found out about Merciless through Dead listening to their second demo. Ekeroth writes that Merciless was the first extreme Swedish metal band since Bathory to get a record deal and how hard the band worked in the scene by sending out letters, demos and playing gigs around Sweden. In 1989 they played a classic concert at Rockborgen in the town Fagersta together with Sepultura and Sodom a very classic stage for the Swedish Death Metal genre. A gig I really wished to have seen.

Being signed to Deathlike Silence Productions was probably not the best start for Merciless because Euronymous didn’t have the finance to properly distribute or to promote this excellent album. He had told them about doing a Eastern Europe tour but that never happened. Had they been signed to Earache or Nuclear Blast in 1990 my believe is that the Merciless saga would've been a more successful one. But then again they’ve produced 4 great records and one cannot dispute the fact how important "The Awakening" was to the Swedish scene because this was the first Death Metal album to be released from my country just before "Dark Recollections" by Carnage and "Left Hand Path" by Entombed. In 1992 Merciless released the follow-up "The Treasures Within" on Active Records but more about that one in another post. For now if you don't own a copy of "The Awakening" stop reading and head for the record store or buy it online.

This flyer for "The Awakening" is from the "Swedish Death Metal" book by Daniel Ekeroth: