Mercenárias

Reviews

Mercenárias Cadê As Armas? LP reissue

The 1986 debut album from São Paulo’s femme-punk legends MERCENÁRIAS finally gets the reissue treatment that it so desperately needed, following a pair of killer releases from Nada Nada Discos in recent years that focused on the band’s unreleased and archival material. Slashing guitar, dance-to-destroy rhythms, and shouted gang vocals denouncing all manner of oppressive systems (the police, the Brazilian government, the Catholic church), executed with an absolutely vicious, fiery energy like BUSH TETRAS or the AU PAIRS playing at a hardcore pace—ten songs in eighteen minutes! The LP’s two most urgent and blistering tracks are probably their best-known, namely “Polícia,” which starts off with a bass-supplied klaxon call before launching into a frantic push/pull of disco beats and call-and-response chants, and “Pânico,” which counters its scrabbling guitar and deep bass throb with some disarmingly melodic backing harmonies, but the darker, chorused-out post-punk moments (“Imagem” and “Amor Inimigo,” in particular) are equally great, foreshadowing a more SIOUXSIE-adjacent direction that MERCENÁRIAS would take on their 1988 follow-up Trashland. Highest recommendation possible!

Mercenárias Baú 83-87 LP

More material unearthed from the Brazilian masters of post-punk, courtesy of the splendid Nada Nada Discos. Twenty great quality demo and live tracks, and often even cooler, rawer versions of previously released ones. The live tracks from “Hardcore Rock Night” on side B especially demonstrate the sheer power and genius these women were capable of. Angular beats, massive hooks, enchanting melodies, confrontational harshness—they really could do it all. And the dreamy photo booklet layout reveals just how larger-than-life this band was. Mandatory for both fans and newcomers.