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While this is titled “Demos Collection,” it’s actually a discography–the collected works of one of the most ferocious hardcore groups to come out of the Southeast in the last decade. Mercenary’s noisy, heavy riffing blends Scandinavian and Japanese influences, and the drums blaze a frantic d-beat. It’s the vocals, though, that propel their recordings into the stratosphere. Vocalist Michael “Ruby” Rubenstein was at his most unchained in Mercenary, and his performance here has been likened to a “Neanderthal’s battle cry.” While modern science has concluded that Neanderthals were complex primates capable of art and symbolic thought, they were probably terrifying to face in a struggle for survival. While they had some enticing opportunities, the band never committed anything to vinyl save a comp track. They broke up in 2015, leaving behind two tapes and achieving legendary status for their pummeling live performances in Atlanta.
In 2021, Ruby passed away unexpectedly, a devastating loss for friends, punks, and music dorks around the world. This album is not only a brutal slab of tuneage, it’s also an important artifact representing Ruby’s life and his love of music. The tracks on this LP have been remixed and remastered to better capture the band’s intensity, and the album comes with a foldout insert and a photo of Ruby in action along with stark cover art by Joe Della. If Mercenary flew under your radar the first time, you missed out. Snag this once and future bonzer now. Proceeds from the sales of this record will go to the Atlanta Harm Reduction Coalition along with some other projects and causes in memory of Ruby that his beloved friends are still in the midst of planning. Limited to a one time pressing of 500 copies.
Our take: Beach Impediment Records brings us the collected works of Mercenary, an Atlanta hardcore band that existed briefly—according to the liner notes, not much more than a year—around 2013 and 2014. I knew Mercenary’s members from their previous bands (including Bukkake Boys, who released a couple of records on Sorry State) and the hardcore scene in the Southern US is small and pretty tight-knit, but even for someone like me who was paying attention, Mercenary felt like a blip on the radar, bubbling up and fizzling far too quickly. This collection adjusts my perspective, making me realize what a fully formed and powerful band Mercenary was. Listening to this collection in the year 2022, I’m struck by how ahead of their time Mercenary sounded. This sound—frantic and complex, Totalitär-style riffing with some extra Shitlickers / Cimex heft—is all over the place in today’s punk scene, and if you’re into bands like Public Acid, Scarecrow, and Extended Hell (guitarist Jesse’s band after Mercenary), you’re gonna love this. The LP collects Mercenary’s 2013 demo, their track from Beach Impediment’s Hardcore Gimme Some More compilation, and five songs from an aborted LP session. The 2013 demo sounds even better to me now than it did at the time. Vicious hardcore with some progressive, squealy noise bits that are a bit like what Public Acid has included on their recordings. However, the aborted LP tracks (which were released on cassette under the title Atlanta’s Burning) are the real treat here. These tracks strip away the noise elements and the riffs get more focused, more complex, and even meaner. It’s fucking killer. Mercenary’s vocalist Ruby (whom you almost certainly know if you were involved in the east coast DIY hardcore scene in the late 00s and 2010s) passed away in 2021, making this LP special for those of us who were lucky enough to know him. (The inserts feature a bunch of photos that make me laugh and cry at the same time.) Regardless of your personal connection with the band, this reissue makes a convincing case for Mercenary as one of the most underrated hardcore bands of the 2010s.
In 2021, Ruby passed away unexpectedly, a devastating loss for friends, punks, and music dorks around the world. This album is not only a brutal slab of tuneage, it’s also an important artifact representing Ruby’s life and his love of music. The tracks on this LP have been remixed and remastered to better capture the band’s intensity, and the album comes with a foldout insert and a photo of Ruby in action along with stark cover art by Joe Della. If Mercenary flew under your radar the first time, you missed out. Snag this once and future bonzer now. Proceeds from the sales of this record will go to the Atlanta Harm Reduction Coalition along with some other projects and causes in memory of Ruby that his beloved friends are still in the midst of planning. Limited to a one time pressing of 500 copies.
Our take: Beach Impediment Records brings us the collected works of Mercenary, an Atlanta hardcore band that existed briefly—according to the liner notes, not much more than a year—around 2013 and 2014. I knew Mercenary’s members from their previous bands (including Bukkake Boys, who released a couple of records on Sorry State) and the hardcore scene in the Southern US is small and pretty tight-knit, but even for someone like me who was paying attention, Mercenary felt like a blip on the radar, bubbling up and fizzling far too quickly. This collection adjusts my perspective, making me realize what a fully formed and powerful band Mercenary was. Listening to this collection in the year 2022, I’m struck by how ahead of their time Mercenary sounded. This sound—frantic and complex, Totalitär-style riffing with some extra Shitlickers / Cimex heft—is all over the place in today’s punk scene, and if you’re into bands like Public Acid, Scarecrow, and Extended Hell (guitarist Jesse’s band after Mercenary), you’re gonna love this. The LP collects Mercenary’s 2013 demo, their track from Beach Impediment’s Hardcore Gimme Some More compilation, and five songs from an aborted LP session. The 2013 demo sounds even better to me now than it did at the time. Vicious hardcore with some progressive, squealy noise bits that are a bit like what Public Acid has included on their recordings. However, the aborted LP tracks (which were released on cassette under the title Atlanta’s Burning) are the real treat here. These tracks strip away the noise elements and the riffs get more focused, more complex, and even meaner. It’s fucking killer. Mercenary’s vocalist Ruby (whom you almost certainly know if you were involved in the east coast DIY hardcore scene in the late 00s and 2010s) passed away in 2021, making this LP special for those of us who were lucky enough to know him. (The inserts feature a bunch of photos that make me laugh and cry at the same time.) Regardless of your personal connection with the band, this reissue makes a convincing case for Mercenary as one of the most underrated hardcore bands of the 2010s.