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Mercenarias: Cadê As Armas? LP (original 1986, Baratos Afins; reissue 2021, Beat Generation)
We just got in copies of this reissue of Cadê As Armas?, the first album from Brazil’s Mercenárias, and I’ve been spinning it a bunch. I’ve heard these tracks on several previous Mercenarias compilations like 2005’s The Beginning of the End of the World on Soul Jazz Records and the 2018 collection on Nada Nada Discos, but Beat Generation’s reissue marks the first time Cadê As Armas? has been reissued in its original format.
Mercenárias began in 1982 when the punk scene in São Paulo was at a creative peak, with bands like Inocentes, Cólera, Olho Seco, and Ratos de Porão hitting their stride. While Inocentes and Cólera had a lot of UK punk in their sound, the latter bands’ gnarly hardcore is what I think of when I imagine early 80s Brazil… grimy, angry, and above all intense. When you factor in that Brazil’s proto death metal scene with bands like Sepultura and Sarcófago was just a few years away, it seems like brutality must have been the order of the day, but Mercenarias’ music is something else.
Unfortunately, I can’t seem to scrounge up much historical information about the band. Nearly every bio notes the members were students when Mercenarias started, which makes perfect sense… Mercenarias’ music comes off as urbane, particularly when contrasted with the hardcore bands I mentioned above. However, I can’t seem to find much on why the group started or what the members wanted to accomplish. Even the two essays printed in this reissue’s insert (one of them by Joao Gordo, Ratos de Porão’s singer) seem to be from an outside perspective. The sounds of the early Rough Trade Records catalog must have influenced Mercenarias, since their music exudes a sense of art school cool that resembles many of those bands.
While I don’t have much info to fill out Mercenarias’ story, I have some good news: there’s a surprising amount of vintage video footage of the band. Check out this video of “Pânico” live on Brazilian TV, this one of a track from their second album, Trashland, on another Brazilian TV show, this scorching early live version of “Policia,” and their very awesome, very 80s official video for “Pânico.”