Behind The Tracks: SUNMACHINE - Mercy Killing (Single) (2026)

Jacob Wix (Guitarist/Backing Vocals): Mercy Killing is a song like so many, where the initial idea comes (in this case, the first verse), but the rest of the song isn’t worked on and finished until years later.

It was a nice change of pace for us as a band to do a song that is 90% quiet and clean. We’ve experimented with this before in songs of ours like ‘Wake,’ but we’ve never done almost an entire song this way. Who knows, maybe one day we’ll do a song that is quite clean from beginning to end.

‘Mercy Killing’ is about the beauty that can be found in the worst moments of life. I know that ever since SUNMACHINE started, contrasting our high-energy/heavy songs with a melancholic ballad has been something we like to do. I think that’s a big part of the band’s writing style. We all love sad ballads.’

‘It would have been very easy to make Mercy Killing heavy, and have it be a classic angry heartbreak song. But that would’ve been wrong. When I first started writing it, I was in a place in my life where something bad had just happened, but I refused to see the beauty in it. Yes, I was sad, but sadness can be as beautiful and as awe-inspiring as happiness.’

Support independent metal journalism — Visit the official BTC store