Mercury Tide

Why? (Century Media)
by Martin Popoff

It’s funny, the whole set-up of this thing spells sell-out or critical drubbing or other disaster, given perspective. But as much as the idea of Angel Dust’s Dirk Thurisch doing Sentenced-style churn rock blows (Angel Dust, if you recall, broke up, joining Immortal as bands bloody well loved and gone in untimely fashion), I find myself reaching for this punchy, unadorned, self-evident, and honest (ironically so?) record fairly often, to the point where I’m actually beginning to learn it (egad!).

The reason Why? doesn’t have a hope of capturing Sentenced or Rapture or Daylight Dies is that the production is quite featureless, not to mention the fact that you’ve got a power metal guy (albeit one of the best, and a growly one at that) at the helm. Then there’s all that rule-breaking going on. Strange, but seductive, even though reports coming in are that most can’t get past the ill-fitted genre-splicings of this minor supergroup (Tiamat and Flowing Tears guys are included), finding Mercury Tide schizophrenic and perhaps opportunistic.
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