Mercenary is an album by the British

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 death metal

Death metal

Death metal is an extreme subgenre of heavy metal. It typically employs heavily distorted guitars, tremolo picking, deep growling vocals, blast beat drumming, minor keys or atonality, and complex song structures with multiple tempo changes....

 band Bolt Thrower. It was recorded at Chapel Studios

Chapel Studios

Chapel Studios is a music recording studio, located in South Thoresby, Lincolnshire.-Studios:The facility houses two main studio rooms, both of which are available for use by the public and contain state of the art equipment. The studio houses a former Masonic Chapel, from which the studio takes...

, Lincoln, England, December 1997 to January 1998. The album was produced by Bolt Thrower and Ewan Davis. It was released on Metal Blade Records

Metal Blade Records

Metal Blade Records is a record label which was founded by Brian Slagel in 1982. The U.S. corporate office for Metal Blade is located in Agoura Hills, California. It also has offices in Arizona, Germany, Japan, Canada, and the UK. The label is distributed in the U.S. by Sony BMG Music...

 in 1998.

The cover painting is titled "Contact – Wait Out", which is also the first track on the next album, "Honour – Valour – Pride".

"Powder Burns" is a continuation of the song "Embers" from The IVth Crusade

The IVth Crusade

The IVth Crusade is the fourth studio album by the British death metal band Bolt Thrower. It was recorded at Sawmill Studios in August 1992 and produced by Bolt Thrower and Colin Richardson. The album was engineered by John Cornfield and mixed at Fon studios. It was also engineered by Alan Fisch...

, and leads into "The Killchain" on Those Once Loyal

Those Once Loyal

Those Once Loyal is an album by the British death metal band Bolt Thrower. It was released on 11 November 2005 in Germany, 14 November 2005 in the rest of Europe and 15 November 2005 in the USA by Metal Blade Records. It was recorded and mixed at Sable Rose Studios in Coventry, England...

.

Track listing

all songs written by Bolt Thrower

1. "Zeroed" – 5:46
2. "Laid to Waste" – 4:40
3. "Return from Chaos" – 5:04
4. "Mercenary" – 5:54
5. "To the Last ..." – 5:24
6. "Powder Burns" – 4:46
7. "Behind Enemy Lines" – 5:18
8. "No Guts, No Glory" – 4:07
9. "Sixth Chapter" – 5:40
10. "Infiltrator" ¹ – 4:47

¹ Bonus track on digipak

Digipak

Digipak is a patented style of CD, DVD or BD packaging, and is a registered trademark of AGI World Ltd., an Atlas Holdings company.-Features:...

 and Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

ese version. The digipak edition contains 25 tracks of which tracks 10 to 24 are short tracks of silence.

Personnel

• Karl Willetts – vocals
  Singing
  Singing is the act of producing musical sounds with the voice, and augments regular speech by the use of both tonality and rhythm. One who sings is called a singer or vocalist. Singers perform music known as songs that can be sung either with or without accompaniment by musical instruments...
  
  
• Gavin Ward
  Gavin Ward (musician)
  Gavin Ward is one of the two founding members of Bolt Thrower. He started out as the bass player early on in the band in 1986, and so can be heard on the first demo. For the second demo, he switched to playing lead and rhythm guitar. He plays lead and rhythm guitar on all albums, save Mercenary and...
  
   – rhythm guitar
  Rhythm guitar
  Rhythm guitar is a technique and rôle that performs a combination of two functions: to provide all or part of the rhythmic pulse in conjunction with singers or other instruments; and to provide all or part of the harmony, ie. the chords, where a chord is a group of notes played together...
  
  
• Barry Thompson
  Barry Thompson
  Barry Thompson plays lead and rhythm guitar in Bolt Thrower on all albums. He co-founded the band in 1986. He is also the main songwriter of the band. Thompson also did some backing vocals on the Benediction album, Grind Bastard.-Equipment:...
  
   – rhythm
  Rhythm guitar
  Rhythm guitar is a technique and rôle that performs a combination of two functions: to provide all or part of the rhythmic pulse in conjunction with singers or other instruments; and to provide all or part of the harmony, ie. the chords, where a chord is a group of notes played together...
  
   and lead
  Lead guitar
  Lead guitar is a guitar part which plays melody lines, instrumental fill passages, guitar solos, and occasionally, some riffs within a song structure...
  
   guitar
• Jo Bench
  Jo Bench
  Jo-Anne Bench is a death metal bass player from Leamington Spa, England. She plays bass in Bolt Thrower on all albums, but not on the demos. She has been vegetarian since 1984....
  
   – Bass guitar
  Bass guitar
  The bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....
  
  
• Alex Thomas – drums
  Drum kit
  A drum kit is a collection of drums, cymbals and often other percussion instruments, such as cowbells, wood blocks, triangles, chimes, or tambourines, arranged for convenient playing by a single person ....
  
  

Production & Miscellaneous Credits

• Arranged by Bolt Thrower
• Produced by Ewan Davies & Bolt Thrower
• Recorded & Engineered by Ewan Davies, except "Powder Burns" (recorded & engineered by James Anderson)
• Peter Archer
  Peter Archer
  Peter Archer, Baron Archer of Sandwell is a British Labour peer who was Shadow Secretary of State for Northern Ireland from 1983 to 1987.Peter Archer may also refer to:*Peter Archer , a member of Crow...
  
   – Front cover: sketch for "Contact – Wait Out"
• Jan Meininghaus – Eye motif
• Paul McHale – Chaos skull