2004-02-19
The king is back!
It has been since “The Eye” that we waited in vain, and album and yet another, and it seems that this king is now naked, because the output was at beast – mediocre.
King Diamond, for those who do not know, is the legendary vocalist of Danish metal band – Merciful Faith.
Born in 1956 as Kim Bendix Petersen (what make him, in two years, 50 years old) in Demark,
He was heavily influenced by an artist by the name of Alice Copper, begun as a member of a band called The Brats, and then continued in Black Rose, finally landing the spot as vocalist for Merciful Faith, before going into a highly successful solo career.
His solo career started at the mid-eighties, accompanied by a young talented guitarist named Andy La Rocque, he gained fame quickly, and some of his albums are considered eternal metal classics.
The fall begun, in my opinion, after releasing an album called “The Eye” in 1990, the fantastic line up fell apart, and a few albums, slowly weaker and weaker came out, the following “The Spider’s Lullaby” was a not-so-bad offering, but the next albums to come out, were sub-par at best, I slowly came to accept that the band was done, un involving lyrics, less the interesting music, King Diamond had run his course…
Then came The Puppet Master.
The finest bit of this, King Diamond’s latest album, is that from play one, I understood this is (in the words of Gold Member) a keeper.
Dark, foreboding atmosphere, multi layered vocals, fast melodic songs, an excellent sound, and horror movie –like texts, which King, in the limited edition, explains in a DVD format additional CD, in an involving, if at parts amusing, style.
The songs are there, for certain, starting with the opening track, a short intro-like musical number, that weaves the webs that soon envelope the listener, straight onto the title track, which opens with a lead guitar bit that sounds right out of the “Conspiracy” album, done by Mike Wead, former Memento Mori guitarist, and one of the only shredders that can hold their own when confronted with Andy, one of metal’s finest guitarists, and the next track “Lies” a fast and furious number, which introduces one of the finest metal riffs to grace my ears these last few years.
All in all, there is no weak track here, this album is a heavy contender for 2004’s best metal albums, and though there is stiff competition ahead, I can easily recommend this to any melodic metal fan out there.
Alon Miasnikov
