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French Death Metal veterans Mercyless gained themselves a place of notoriety in the underground with their first two albums, Abject Offerings and Coloured Funeral. Subsequent albums would see the band straying away from what made them so good, with the band initially being put on hold after the disappointing Sure to Be Pure in 2000. Thirteen years later, they came back with Unholy Black Splendor, which was a return to form in every way, and now we have their latest album, The Mother of All Plagues, to solidify the fact that they're back at the top of their game.

Nothing surprising here, as this is more of the old-school Death Metal in the vein of past greats like Morbid Angel, Vital Remains, and Pestilence, though that might be a bit of a disservice to say since Mercyless are sometimes counted amongst them in the same terms. Gigantic walls of crushing riffs, excellent solos and melodies, and the top-notch grunts of mainman Max Otero make this a soul-crushing slab of Death Metal that digs back to the bloody roots of the genre, and it's been a while since they've sounded so good to hear. Killer shit from a killer band.