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.