Merciless was one of the first underground Death/Thrash Metal bands in Sweden, inspired by the early fast-playing bands such as Kreator, Sodom, Destruction and Bathory. Merciless was formed during the summer of 1986 in Strängnäs, Sweden by Erik Wallin (guitar) Fredrik Karlén (bass guitar) and Stefan Carlsson (drums). After a few weeks they became a complete unit when the "vocalist"? Kåle joined the band. The following months they did some local gigs under the names "Obsessed" and "Black mass" before they applied the name Merciless in early'87.In july'87 they recorded a 4 track demotape called "behind the black door" which were only printed in 100 ex. Things didn't work out very well with Kåle, and he was replaced by "Rogga" in the beginning of 1988. Merciless improved and developed in song-writing and after the recording of their second 4 track demotape "Realm of the dark" june'88 they received a lot of great response within and outside Sweden. The demo sold about 2.000 ex. and gave them a deal with Norwegian "Deathlike Silence Productions".In the summer of 1989 Merciless recorded their first album "The Awakening" which was released on D.S.P. in March'90. After the release they did a lot of gigs with other Swedish bands such as Entombed, Dismember, Dissection, Count Raven and also one with Brazilian Sepultura on their "Beneath the remains" tour.Merciless second album "The tresures within" was recorded in June/July'91 but wasn't released by their lacy shit label "Active Records" until a year later. During that time the drummer "Stipen" got tired of waiting and in February'92 he was replaced by Peter Starwind (also Unanimated).In May'93 they did a Scandinavia tour with Entombed and in September they recorded their third album "Unbound" with Monster-producer Dan Swanö at his Unisound studios. After the release on "House of kicks/No fashion rec." Merciless only did one gig in May'94 before they decided to take a long break. Tired of the lack of support from the record companies during the years Merciless lost inspiration to continue. 1995 they performed on the tribute to Slayer rec. "Slatanic Slaughter" with the tune "Crionics".In 1999 the first album was released on "Osmose prod". They were offered a lot of gigs and begun to rehearse again. After a couple of successful gigs they decided to start working on a new album. In May 2002 they finally entered Studio "Dog Pound" in Stockholm. 10 new Death-Thrashing Merciless songs have been released on Black Lodge under the name "Merciless".MERCILESS reformed for an eponymous 2003 album. Their Stockholm show in August of that year would be captured on the DVD 'Live Obsession', this also including video from a 1999 performance.

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