http://www.blabbermouth.net/news/king-d ... dio-album/

Kind of insane that King came back to the scene in 2012 and is only now just beginning to think about new material. He's been subtly hinting at it for years, but nothing concrete until now. Of course, I have every belief it will be amazing (as with practically everything King touches). I'm expecting King to bring back the falsetto, and use a lot more of his higher range on this album (for those unaware, the last album "Give Me Your Soul" had virtually none, and was almost entirely mid-range singing). The reason is because his voice has improved a lot post-surgery, I saw him live in 2014 and he was practically perfect, able to hit every high note with ease...something he wasn't able to do maybe 10 years ago. It also might seem a little weird, but I'm really excited to hear the new bassist Pontus Egberg (his stage presence and playing style really blew me away, though sure he's being compared to the "human cardboard cutout" Hal Patino...) Also, the long-awaited concert DVD is nearing completion, can't wait to finally see that!

So we can also turn this into a general King Diamond thread until further information is revealed! I'll start by saying this: Andy La'Rocque is the greatest guitarist in the history of metal, at least in terms of solos. He has a really distinctive style, sort of a "melancholy neo-classical" thing, which fits absolutely perfectly into the "gothic horror" vibe that persists in King Diamond's music. He's also an incredible songwriter, I love the more straightforward heavy/thrash metal approach he brings to the table, which contrast well with King's more epic and intricate compositions.

Great news and I'm with you on La Rocque - he is my favourite guitarist.

OK then, I'll say that KD is responsible for one of the greatest flip-flops I've made in my time listening to metal. At one point I said I'd "never" or "probably never" be able to appreciate any album with his vocals on it. The style sounded so alien to me. Then a couple of factors, including Abigail's 97% score here, motivated me to try again, and I can now say I appreciate his voice in the context of that album.

I only own Abigail and "Them" and I don't know how many more I'll get, but both are great additions to my collection which is seriously lacking in heavy / traditional metal. I like that both albums save the (IMO) best song for last: Black Horsemen and Twilight Symphony are basically perfect closers.

I'll believe it when it's finally out. I do agree that his voice hasn't sounded this good in eons though (caught him like three and a half years ago and he was incredible). I think it's partially the surgery but I've also heard that he quit smoking, and that helped his voice get back to that late 80s shape again. We'll see what happens, I'm not to optimistic though, honestly.

The reason for that is because of what I'd say in a general King Diamond thread, and that's that I think he's been coasting on his few great albums and charisma for decades at this point. Mercy in the 80s was some of the best metal ever written, and when he went solo it was basically like this: Fatal Portrait = good, Abigail = incredible, "Them" = good, Conspiracy = incredible, Everything Else = mehhh. I don't know what happened but apart from a few songs here and there he seems to have just totally lost the knack for whatever made the music so damn good in the 80s. It's like as soon as 1990 happened his songwriting talent got sapped Monstar style.

I thought Puppet Master was great. Along with Voodoo. The Eye is on par with anything he has ever done as well.

Give Me Your Soul was so trashy I'm almost skeptical about a new album. The production was lame and the drumming might as well been done with a machine.

I second the General King Diamond thread. I'm not sure why he gets a whole bunch of shit for waiting to write new music. Metal is not really a cash cow and with the cost of the surgery he went through, etc, I'm sure his constant touring for the past several years was needed to pay some bills. Recording costs money and I'm sure in this age of music consumption, touring makes more money than album sales.

Now, for a general King Diamond conversation, I'll start by sharing this story. I've shared is here before.....

If there’s one thing I’ve never expected to see or hear in a discussion about King Diamond, it’s a Space Jam reference but there we have it. Good look, BH!

I’m approaching any new album with cautious optimism given the completely understandable gap in time but moreso how nonplussed I was with the last one even when it came out. Unfortunately, it hasn’t aged any better, but having his first genuine slip-up in his entire career after so long is forgivable.

As a sidebar, wasn’t Hexenhaus working on a new album a couple of years ago and Mike Wead was a part of it, or was that all a fever dream I had?

Good news but we heard it all before, wasn’t this album and dvd suppose to come out like 3 years ago?
Oh, well....long live the King!!!!!!!!!!

I'll be glad to hear what he sounds like in the studio nowadays, especially since I've not seen him live or any video footage since his surgery. In terms of a new album, I think it'd be interesting to see a story takes place between Them and Conspiracy. There's such whiplash in character from one album to the next that I always felt like something was missing that'd help more sense. I also kinda hope for a story where he has to deal with doppelgangers trying to replace him, maybe get some of the singers from the Mercyful Fate clones as special guests?

It is indeed his worst album, but still has a few great songs like Never Ending Hill, Black of Night, and The Girl in the Bloody Dress. I also think the story is pretty lame, back in high school a buddy of mine used to always joke about how 90% of the story is really just King talking about how cold and/or dark the room he's in is.

Absolutely awesome news. Can't wait to hear what this new album is going to sound like. I really enjoyed "Give Me Your Soul... Please" compared to "The Puppet Master", which I think is King's worst album. I thought it had better riffs, better solos and less Livia whom I'm not a huge fan of. King's vocals had taken a big hit though during this 4 year gap.

Eagerly waiting, like always. In my opinion this man hasn't made a bad album in his career. Average perhaps, but not downright bad. The most consistent mainstream metal artist? The Puppet Master is one of my favorites from him, so there's a possibility the new album will reach the same level.

I own every King Diamond album apart from Voodoo and Give Me Your Soul. And I'll be honest, I only play the first 5 albums, which are simply superb. I'm not sure what happened after that. I've got a feeling I read many years ago that the band members don't live that close to one another, so rehearsals are pretty much non-existent. Perhaps if they could jam more before entering the studio they could see what works and what doesn't. I dunno. But some key ingredient has been missing since 1990. I always felt that losing Michael Denner was a huge loss to the band. He didn't write that many songs, but his solos were always amazing, and complemented Andy's really well. But those first 5 albums remain genuine classics (although Fatal Portrait would have been far greater if they'd taken off the pointless 'Voices From The Past' and included 'The Lake' instead - whose bright idea was it that decided this great track should be used only as a b-side? Idiot!).

King Diamond is my favorite artist of all time, but it is undeniable that he ended on a weak note. Give Me Your Soul was a lame album in almost every facet, especially disappointing because The Puppet Master was so decent. I'll agree with just about everyone here that the decline began in the 90's. IMO, the last great album he was on was In the Shadows, which also has his last truly magnificent song, Egypt.

My theory is this: KD's quality began dropping once he started wearing the top-hat. I never liked that liked look. I was also never a fan of the post-Them make up either. If he got the MF biker or the Fatal Portrait pirate look back again, then he would recapture some of the old magic.

I'm not sure where this hate comes from for later King Diamond, especially Give Me Your Soul. Why does everyone shit on Give Me Your Soul? I'm spinning it now and believe it's a solid album. The riffs are not lacking and the hooks are there. The guitar work is spot on. King's falsetto is more in the background on this album which is kinda cool IMO. I just don't get it. It's not Abigail but it's far from his worst. If King ever put a bad album out it was The Graveyard.

I don't think hate would be the right word to use. It's just that on those first 2.5 MF records and on the first 3 (maybe 5) KD records that the man was a god. Every band member was a superstar. From Conspiracy downward there was simply no weak link in the band. From the drummers to the guitarists to the vocals to the songwriting and even the album graphics, everything was just top notch. It is probably the longest run of extreme high quality metal that there is.

The first cracks began with the overly stiff execution on In the Shadows. That album and many others past it had some really great moments, but it was there that I thought KD developed this habit of timing his vocals exactly with the guitar parts, like the whole "I saw a family haunted by an entity" part on the second track.

On the earlier material the band was fast and loose. Take Curse of the Pharaohs or Gypsy for example. You had a chugging and driving riffs with the band sounding completely organic with King singing over the top. There was a spontaneity of delivery that continued well into the solo material, in particular with tracks like Family Ghost and Welcome Home.

Spider's Lullaby still had some raw electricity to it and that is my favorite record from the 90's. The first half of the album is great, but, it was with the second half that the band made it's first ever "corny" material. An element of unintentional goofiness creeped into the bands material for the first with that albums title track. (On No Presents for Christmas the goofiness was intentional.)

The Graveyard was the first time that we saw bad production and poor graphics. Waiting in the Dark is an awesome track, but I just don't get much pleasure or headbanging out of that album's material. Voodoo was a much more fun album with improved graphics, but it lacks fire and punch of the earlier albums. House of God's Just a Shadow was an excellent track, but that album was very stiff otherwise. Abigail II was better and Puppet Master was even better than that, but Give Me Your Soul I put on a par with Graveyard as being just generally uninspired.

I'll end by saying that this is all just my opinion. I own all the albums and while I listen to the 80's material and the Nightmare in the Nineties compilation with regularity, I have not listened to any thing post 2000 in years. I'll revisit Give Me Your Soul soon and if I hear it differently now than before then I will definitely come back and state some positives I discovered.

I can see where you are coming from but every time I revisit the album I like it a lot more. The Spider's Lullabye is bad ass from beginning to end. That album took a while for me to warm up to bit it smokes. As for the MF reunion era, In the Shadows and Time are essential. Into The Unknown suffered from a lot of things, including Michael Denner phoning it in and the songwriting was just not there. King's voice was suffering at that time too. He was recording two albums at a time, the other one turned out to be the only really bad King Diamond album, The Graveyard. Dead Again was better than it's predecessor but 9 has a special place in my heart since the first time I heard it was in King Diamond's living room.

From the production to the songs the only thing that saved The Graveyard was the solos. Some killer guitar work. It just is not an album I revisit that much. The song structure was terrible and the production was just gods awful. Voodoo was better but still had that dry almost groove metal production that The Graveyard suffered from. From House of God onward the production has gotten better. Clean and polished but not stale. Abigial II is the best of the later era King Diamond. Just incredible from beginning to end.

So I guess I said all that just to say The Graveyard for King Diamond and Into The Unknown for Mercyful Fate are the only two albums that I just can not like no matter what. They were recorded at the same time and King was exhausted. He even had to cancel a portion of a tour not long after due to exhaustion.

As for new King Diamond, I am actually looking forward to it because his health and his voice are in top form so I'm eager to hear what he comes up with.

"The Graveyard" was definitely flawed, some subpar songwriting and over-the-top performance (Up from the Grave, anyone??) drag it down but to be honest, I've always had a soft spot for it just because of the atmosphere it gives off. For me that album just screams Halloween with every fiber of it's being, moreso than practically anything else King has recorded (which is obviously saying a lot). The story is also excellent, easily the most disturbing and gore-filled concept King has ever come up with...on the other hand "Give Me Your Soul" was definitely a lot more consistent (Cold as Ice is the only song I would say I absolutely don't like) and didn't reach the levels of awkwardness that "The Graveyard" did - better songwriting and musicianship to boot, but at the same time I guess it just felt a tad...safe, maybe? While not a bad album by any means, it just tends to lack identity, I guess. And yeah, the story sucks but I explained that already.

As for Mercyful Fate, "In the Shadows" I'd give a 9/10 and "9" a 9/9, however I've always had a hard time placing the middle three of the "reunion" era. To me, all three albums have stellar moments (Castillo Del Mortes, Holy Water, The Lady Who Cries, etc.) but also some lesser tracks (The Preacher, Deadtime, Since Forever, etc.). That said, I've started to warm up to "Dead Again" a lot over the years, at this point it might edge out the other two slightly just by the nature of having that epic-as-fuck title track.

Also, I agree 100000% about "Abigail II: The Revenge" - definitely the best of the later years, a criminally underrated album, not a single dull moment on that album!

To me it's still a decent album by 'naughties' (00's) standards, but I perceived it as sounding plastic, fake, automated. It doesn't have that raw energy and almost sounds computer generated to me.


However, I agree - Abigail II is criminally underrated, as is House Of God. Graveyard is, however, boring imo.

Give Me Your Soul is bad for the drumming alone. Add the sterile production and you're golden for a mediocre-at-best album.

Everything up to and including The Eye is essential. We all know that, right? King never successfully replaced Dee and LaRoque’s “guitarist’s view” production makes matters far worse. That said, I enjoy The Spider’s Lullaby and Voodoo, both are cool. You can tell the ‘95 album was written much earlier than its release date and that’s no bad thing.

I’m not sure whether I’m actually expecting much from a new album. I would hope for an old school sound and plenty of Randy Rhoads-esque riffs.

You have a good point, but the lead guitar is pretty amazing at times. I think it gets better as it goes on.

Really, The Spider's Lullaby had King Diamond's first corny moments? I know it's a subjective thing but Them is cheesy as fuck, even if it is a great album. There's a reason why Welcome Home is such a meme.

Looking back on Give Me Your Soul, I think the album's biggest problem is the blatant filler. The music writing is solid on its own but the lyrics are absolutely bloated compared to past albums. You have a song about how dark it is, a song about how cold it is, a song about seeing a ghost in a mirror for five seconds, a song where a ghost confronts you, a song where you run away, a song where another ghost comes to get you, a song where the main ghost is gonna get you, a song where it's...just standing there, and so on. It feels like he took what were supposed to be individual lines in one track and made them into their own songs. It's not a bad story but it could've easily been told in five songs or less.

Glad to see some love for Voodoo and The Puppet Master, it may be a generational thing but I think the latter may actually be my favorite KD album.

This amazing news. The King is getting old and I was starting to think Give Me Your Soul... was it.

Really hope they step up the album cover this time around and bring back some more intensity.

Well yeah Andy is always good but a couple of moments for every song isn't going to save the album.

I have some real beef with the album.

King Diamond pic LPs up: https://www.indiemerch.com/metalbladere ... ?q=diamond

I never understood what was going on in that story. Can't be just my English skills, The Pupper Master - as the rest of KD discography - was easy to follow.

I love "The Bell Witch," including that bit where he follows the guitar line with his voice (makes it easy to play and sing at the same time, haha). It's interesting that you use Gypsy as a contrast because if I remember correctly, he follows the guitar part pretty directly on the "I see a light, Again I hear that tune, some sort of croon" part... so maybe it was just more obvious on In the Shadows?



I agree with pretty much all of this. Maybe not so much on the particular moments, but definitely the hit/miss nature of the three. I'd probably give Time a 7/10 based purely on the good stuff to less good ratio (I really like the first half up to the t/t, and then the last track kicks ass), Into the Unknown a 8/10 for the same reason with an extra point for nostalgia and the speed metal part of the Mad Arab 2, and Dead Again a 6/10 because most of it just doesn't stick except "The Night," "Mandrake" (that solo section is godly), and the t/t.

Absolutely. Not a fan of the concept songs in the 2nd half, but the first six songs are classic KD at its finest and on par with his Roadrunner albums.

After that, modern productions and unremarkable songwriting started to spoil his discography.

Something to look forward to. Have yet to hear a KD album that I don't enjoy.

I'm pretty sure there are a ton of guitar/vocal synchronizations through King Diamond's entire career. Fortunately he really knows how to make them work.

In the Shadows and Time are 9/10 albums. As far as I am concerned, the 82-94 era of King is essential metal, realy essential music IF you can handle the vocals. Definitely one of my absolute favorite artists ever.

I don't think he's ever put our a downright bad album. But he did release subpar albums, in terms of lineup, production, vocal performance and unfortunately songwriting. My personal least favorites are Give Me Your Soul Please and Abigail II, which I specifically dislike because I hated the plot twist, I really, really did. No reason to fuck with something perfect.

The Spider's Lullabye has GREAT songwriting and terribly underwhelming production and mysteriously underwhelming solos. Andy is also my favorite guitarist in metal by the way.

The Graveyard, same deal, bad production, subpar lineup but it's a fine metal album, esp. for the time of its release. It's very popular in Greece by the way.

Voodoo and the Puppet Master are the best post-golden era KD albums imo. The Exorcist for example is just godly.

I'm waiting for the new material, at this point I don't have any expectations, we'll see. I am kinda bummed though that the King did not do the Mercyful Fate reunion, seeing that Denner and Shermann were obviously willing. The Shermann/Denner ep was very good musically and it seems like a huge waste of music to release that with Sean Peck instead of with King who would also add his talent.

The EP and full length were both solid - they're the greatest guitar duo of all time so no surprise there, but I thought Sean Peck's performance really dragged it down. He can certainly wail and has a good Dickinson-esque voice overall - plus he's pretty distinctive with a lot more personality/charisma than the Force of Evil singer (whose name I forget), but it also sounds like he's forcing it a lot of the time and fails to come up with strong choruses or memorable vocal melodies. Then there's the fact that he tried to include pro-Christian messages in some of the songs . While cool, for a "modern day Mercyful Fate" I'd rather put on Portrait's last three masterpieces .

I think the reason King didn't want to do it, was because he wasn't able to commit to the band fully and he didn't want to resurrect Fate only to do it as a side project. But Brian Slagel (who was also present in the interview) told King that he "will make sure a new Mercyful Fate record happens", much to King's confusion .

I think the reason he did not do it was because he was focusing on resurrecting King Diamond (the band) and doing the Abigail shows and all that and just put Mercyful Fate on ice until *whenever*, which I imagine would be quite annoying to Shermann and Denner.

I agree that Sean Peck does not suit the material, it is very obvious that King Diamond was the voice they had in mind and I am pretty sure, if they had all worked together we could have a repeat triumph of a second stellar comeback. Now, it's just wasted potential, almost (I like them).

Not much to say that Dungeon_Vic and true-death haven't already said, but I have the same feeling about the two Denner/Shermann releases and even the Force of Evil albums. I'd think Denner/Shermann having already written all the music might have left King feeling like an afterthought, but at the same time, that would have helped distinguish the "new Mercyful Fate" material from any new King Diamond, and let King focus on creating awesome melodies and harmonies and such.

But yeah, I think Sean Peck brings a heavy cheese factor to the material (to the point of annoyance), and it's a shame because Mike and Hank are one of my favorite guitar duos ever. I'll always check out their new music, but it would have been awesome to see the Mercyful Fate logo on those covers.

Looks like they're finally making progress on the songwriting!



http://www.blabbermouth.net/news/andy-l ... cal-style/

So in a nutshell.... two new albums coming sometime, effectively part 1 and part 2 of a new story?

Can't believe it's been 11-12 years!

Good to hear La Rocque could have five songs on it.

They must take as long as they need, so the album will be great. Time is not on their side though, they're getting older and older.