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King Diamond: Abigail
08/04/10 || Altmer
I am actually new to King Diamond. It’s what you get for being born in 1989, the year of the fall of the Berlin Wall. I’ve been exposed to quite a few of the classic bands, but for some obscure reason King Diamond never appealed to me, and it wasn’t until people started saying that this doesn’t sound like badly produced thrash, but rather is a more melodic and conceptual beast that I got interested (It’s not the thrash I object to, it’s just that metal should sound like metal and not toddlers banging on tin cans). So I braved the depths of ancient heavy metal, a guy that surely influenced the legions of nekro blakk metallers after him (or was that KISS?), and found that this is actually some really, really good shit. As in, upon listening I was suddenly bedazzled by the classicness of this record.
And I don’t know exactly why that is. King’s voice ain’t special, and he does this thing where he goes über-falsetto (you know what Halford did on “Painkiller”? It’s like that, but not as good). Normally when people do that, I want to stick landmines under their bodies, blowing up their balls all and for once so they can always sing like that. But King doesn’t always use that style, in which case he reverts to some ok-ish semi-gruff voice. It’s pretty mediocre when you think about it. But then again, some of the best and most popular bands have had vocals below the norm (Slayer? Metallica? Emperor?), so there’s got to be some redeeming factor here.
And there is. The songs, the songs, the fucking songs. You know what songwriting means? It’s this thing where you take a bunch of instruments, you sit down, and then you start playing stuff. You ain’t satisfied until it sounds really fucken good, amazing even, nothing but absolute fucken perfection. I think King Diamond knows how to do that. He fucken sat down, Satanic Bible in hand, made a pact with the devil, and wrote some of the best songs known to metal mankind. “The family ghost” is beyond fantastic. “The black horsemen” has a riff that I am sure I have heard about ten bands copy. You forgive that the guy sounds like a woman sometimes when he’s got himself and his cronies to write some of the most amazing metal this side of the pond (so, Europe. Not the USA).
What I also really fucken dig is that even though the production sounds very 80s and all, and it doesn’t sound bulldozer-heavy like, say, Slayer, it manages to be engaging still. Most bands with a thin sound lose interest fast because they’ve got no redeeming factors – either they’re some anemic power metal band and they nick Iron Maiden melodies that we’ve all heard before, or their heaviness gets lost in the fact they don’t have the salary to make their recording sound like more than a recording and not some people bashing a few strings in a very gr1m and necro forest. Yet King’s melodies stand the test of time – one by one, they follow each other like hits in the top 40. Like goals in a 10-0 whitewash in football. Like Roger Federer winning games at Wimbledon. Like ten fucken blowjobs from your favourite whore. Every song is one you wanna hear again. They don’t differentiate that much from each other in style – there are some slower and some faster bits here and there, but other than that it’s pretty much speed metal done the right, right way.
The last thing is that the guitar solos on here are fucken exquisite and a delight to the ears. Solos can make or break a band – have good soloists and have the guitarists know that they are, can lead to big trouble when they want the rest of the world to know they are good soloist. Have bad soloists – your music sounds like shit. But KD’s cronies on the guitars (Andy LaCock, mostly) know how to give a driving song a good solo, and it adds to the song, always. Listen, look, learn. If you wanna play solos in old-school heavy metal, do it like this. It is fucken fantastic.
This is pretty much some of the best “classic” metal out there. It’s on par with everything from that era: Iron Maiden, old Helloween (actually I like this a fuckload more than old Helloween), Judas Priest, Saxon, anything. This is what heavy metal should have always sounded like. It’s evil, it’s catchy, and it’s well-written as all fuck. This is a reason why King Diamond should always be revered as a heavy metal legend, even if most of what came afterwards apparently doesn’t receive so many accolades. (I am not counting obvious other classics like “Them”, of course). So if you’re in the mood for the old skool, take this album, give it a spin, air solo like it’s 1987, and party like it’s 1777 in your grandma’s old mansion. And when someone asks for your soul, make him say please. Always make him say please.
- Information
- Released: 1987
- Label: Roadrunner Records
- Website: www.covenworldwide.org
- Band
- King Diamond: vocals
- Andy LaRocque: guitars
- Michael Denner: guitars
- Timi Hansen: bass
- Mikkey Dee: drums
- Tracklist
- 01. Funeral
- 02. Arrival
- 03. A mansion in darkness
- 04. The family ghost
- 05. The 7th day of July 1777
- 06. Omens
- 07. The Possession
- 08. Abigail
- 09. The black horsemen
