Mercyful Fate / King Diamond Discography

Hmmm,you find it boring ? I think it's a pretty good release,not his best;certainly not the worst. I'm not a musician though so maybe I don't have the ear for the music like you. At any rate,I do find this to be an enjoyable listen-from the creepy intro (don't know why,but that gives me the chills) to the mellow ending.I think my favorite song is Black Devil.

The intro is very creepy and I really like that but yea I just find it to be a really boring album music wise. The story was interesting. I always like when king writes stuff about religion because it makes you think. I agree with a lot of things he says about it. If you listen to the song "Help" you can see what I mean its just the same boring beat almost through the whole song, the guitars are boring. After you hear that song and listen to the rest of the album maybe you'll notice it a little more, but maybe not. I'm very picky and stupid things like drums bother me. The other thing was the production it just sounded so dull compared to "Voodoo", and even jumping the gun to "Abigail II".

I like "House Of God" but I listen to it the least.

2002 King Diamond releases a sequal to Abigail entitled Abigail II the Revenge. Once again There is another line up change this time an old member rejoins the band on Bass, Hal Patino. Also a new drummer by the name of Matt Thompson. Already seeing Hal Patino back in the band I was getting interested in hearing how this sequal was going to be. A lot of bands around this time were doing the whole sequal thing and a lot of the times it really didn't work out or wasn't as great as the original. I think this album proved did what most other sequals didn't do and thats do it right. The musicianship is awesome on this album. The performances are lively and you can feel that they really wanted to make a great album and live up to the original. To me House Of God was a let down. This album blows that away a million times over. Theres a lot of added sounds to make you feel like your in the story, and a lot of vocals and guitar parts go back to the first album as well.

Heres what the albums about

"The plot correlates with that of the original album Abigail, and the listener discovers that she is actually the half-sister of O'Brian (the mysterious leader of the Black Horsemen from the original album), and is kept alive. The year is 1863, and Abigail is now 18 years old. She walks through a forest to the mansion from the original plot, where the gates are locked. She was going to die, when 'little one', the ghost of the original Abigail from 1777 opens the gates. Abigail enters and is greeted by Jonathan's servant, Brandon Henry. It turns out that Jonathan did not die after he fell down the stairs, but is confined to a wheelchair. He has not moved on from Miriam's death and now calls himself Count de Lafey. He greets Abigail, calling her Miriam and believing she is back (she died from the pain when she gave birth to Abigail). He goes to bed, taking Abigail, where Jonathan rapes her, and Abigail decides to get revenge. Abigail goes to the crypt to see her past incarnation. Brandon Henry finds her and Abigail takes a sharp necklace from the mummified baby's neck (the same one from The Eye) and slits his throat. She puts broken glass in Jonathan's food, and then sets him on fire where he dies. The fire spreads to Abigail and she dies as well. The stillborn body of Abigail's 'spirit twin' is still alive, because the fire cannot get to the crypt, so her ghost does not pass on."

From this point on it seems King really started to grow his career once again, but there was one problem, when the album came out it received great reviews but poor record sales. King Diamond's record company claimed loss of profits due to file sharing. It prevented them from supporting an album tour for the band. What a real shame because they could've had great looking stage show with this album.

I like this album as a whole. I think its great and breath of fresh air after a few hit and miss albums.



1. "Spare This Life"
2. "The Storm"
3. "Mansion in Sorrow"
4. "Miriam"
5. "Little One"
6. "Slippery Stairs"
7. "The Crypt"
8. "Broken Glass"
9. "More Than Pain"
10. "The Wheelchair"
11. "Spirits"
12. "Mommy"
13. "Sorry Dear"

Another pretty decent release by King. I know alot of people don't like the sequel thing but it doesn't really bither me at all,as long as the songs are good. That's not really a problem here.Stand outs for me are A Mansion In Sorrow,Miriam ,and Mommy. That creeps me out with the little girl crying out Mommy in that.

Oh and PRD, you're current avatar is hilarious !

Hahah yea that little girl at the end is creepy.

My cousin showed me that avatar and I couldn't pass using that one haha.

Sorry if I haven't updated this in a while but I haven't had the time to sit and write too much. I'm hoping to finish this soon though. I just don't want anyone to think I stopped doing it.

Melissa is my fave, and I also like Don't Break the Oath and some of the demos, and aside from a few songs, I never could really get into King's solo stuff much.

Abigail is my favourite King album.

So haunting and creepy.

Next on my pick up list is Them.

Ok lets finish this up. Sorry for the long wait!

2003 King Diamond releases an album called "The Puppet Master".

Here's the plot of the story.

"King Diamond meets Victoria after a Christmas show put on by the Puppet Master in Budapest. One year after they meet, his beloved goes missing and he sets out to find her. While searching, he comes across the Puppet Master's wife killing a homeless man. He follows her into a building where he is struck from behind and loses consciousness.

When King regains consciousness, he finds himself strapped to a hospital bed and The Puppet Master and his wife standing in front of him with a scalpel. The Puppet Master leans over him and says: "First your eyes... then your skin... we will make you feel born again." and starts to cut out his eyes. One eyelid drops down into a jar. The Puppet Master uses an instrument to pull the eyeball out of its socket, and cuts off the nerve-string which is the only thing holding the eye in place. The Puppet Master then puts the eyeball into a puppet's eye socket. His body is being made into a puppet that comes to life when blood is injected into it. An accident during the ritual when The Puppet Master is dealing with the Devil about King's soul, leaves King Diamond's soul trapped within his permanently aware eyes. It is after this that he sees his girlfriend's body, now a puppet, on another shelf in the Puppet Master's shop.

King Diamond and his beloved are infused with a syringe-full of their blood nightly, so they can practice their routines and learn how to perform for their Master. Each night, after being put away, King and his beloved "talk with their eyes" from across the room as the essence of their blood fades away. King Diamond is forced to witness her fading away every night, because his immortal eyes keep him from slipping away like she does. Eventually, the girl accidentally walks into the wall where shelves hold jars of blood for the puppets and she knocks six of them down. She is sent away to Berlin and King vows to find her again.

Christmas time comes around for the third time in the tale, and King is to perform as The Little Drummer Boy. At his performance, he intentionally falls and breaks his drum to embarrass the Puppet Master. For his actions, he is sold to a shop and left nailed to the wall. At some point, he hears of how the Puppet Master is building a second theater in London, to be run by the Puppet Master's son and daughter and he re-affirms his vow to find his lost love or see her on the "other side".

This album was released with a DVD. It has King sitting at a table dressed in complete make up telling the story of the album and what happens in each song. I thought this was a pretty cool idea. He never did anything like that before and it was cool to watch him tell the story.

Another new idea was to add female vocals. When I heard about this I wasn't too sure how that was going to work. He never had any special guests on his albums really except for Dimebag playing a guitar solo but nothing vocally. The female vocals were handled by Livia Zita, who happens to be King Diamonds girl friend. They met through an interview she did with him. She adds a little something to the story line. Shes actually the female character so it works. The only thing I'm affraid of with this addition is that King will have to try and fit her into each album and write a story about it. As long as he can keep it interesting it can obviously work.

I also think though that this is leading up to the end of all King Diamond and Mercyful Fate releases. He's getting up there in age and his voice, which is still pretty good, is showing signs of ageing. Adding her in the mix takes some of it away but its nothing like earlier albums, which is understandable. You can't do those kind of vocals your whole life.

I like this album a lot. Not one weak track.


1. "Midnight"
2. "The Puppet Master"
3. "Magic"
4. "Emerencia"
5. "Blue Eyes"
6. "The Ritual"
7. "No More Me"
8. "Blood to Walk"
9. "Darkness"
10. "So Sad"
11. "Christmas"
12. "Living Dead"

2004 King Diamond released another live album called Deadly Lullabyes. This could easily be a best of. A lot of great songs were played during the U.S. tour which these songs were taken from. The performance was great too. It does sound a little polished for a live album but its still really good, and great to hear them live finally.

I saw them for the first time on this tour so it was great to get something that reminds me of the show, but I don't think any of the songs were taken from the show I went to unfortunetly.


Disc one
1."Funeral"
2."A Mansion in Darkness"
3."The Family Ghost"
4."Black Horsemen"
5."Spare This Life"
6."Mansion in Sorrow"
7."Spirits"
8."Sorry Dear"
9."Eye of the Witch"
10."Sleepless Nights"

Disc two
1."The Puppet Master"
2."Blood to Walk"
3."So Sad"
4."Living Dead"
5."Welcome Home"
6."The Invisible Guests"
7."Burn"
8.""Introductions""
9."Halloween"
10."No Presents for Christmas"

Excellent job !!!!!!!!!

2007 King comes back with another studio album this one entitled, "Give Me Your Soul...Please". From the title you wonder what is King thinking, but after you listen to the album you understand. The story is of two dead children, murdered by their father, relating their tale to King.

Here's the plot

"At the beginning, a sister and brother are waiting in the afterlife. The brother is to go to Hell, so the sister (Girl in the Bloody Dress) decides to find another soul for him so that he can follow her to Heaven. She takes off to a house in Neverending Hill, where King Diamond lives with his black cat (Magic). The girl tries to contact him for help but she only manages to haunt him. As the darkness grows, objects are moving on their own, lights flicker and the temperature drops to freezing levels, King Diamond uses black magic to contact the girl. She reveals that her father chopped up her brother with an axe, splashing her with his blood, then choked her to death before shooting himself in the head. The "Thirteen Judges" mistakenly think that the brother committed suicide, so she needs to find a soul free of sin for him. She wants Diamond's soul but, since she finds him full of sin when she gazes at him, he pleads her to leave and find another soul before sunrise. The Girl in the Bloody Dress decides to come to 'THIS house' (implying a visit at the listener's home)."

Once again Livia Zita plays a role with vocals on this album as the little girl. The album's concept and cover art are both based on a painting titled "My Mother's Eyes." The black cat featured in the album is based on King's own cat, Magic. In interviews he King says that he let a lot of his own personal life into the album. Such as the mirror on the front cover is something that king has on his wall in his house. He makes mention of his cats, black and magic as well.

This was a great album. Unfortunetly King would never go out on tour for it. Not too long after the release King was suffering from back problems and had to cancel all touring plans until he was fully heeled. In the meantime he was going to work on getting some Mercyful Fate and King Diamond DVD's released. Things were going good but then problems arose with formating the videos for different countries, thus delaying the release.

Recently Livia stated King Diamond had to have triple bypass surgery and would be taking it easy for a few months and all work was being put on hold until King can fully recover, which is understandable.

Hope fully this won't be the last release for either band. It would be great for atleast one more album and maybe have a conclusion to the whole King Diamond story. If it ends up ending on this album thats fine it was another great one either way. We'll have to see how things play out in the next few months.


1. "The Dead"
2. "Never Ending Hill"
3. "Is Anybody Here?"
4. "Black of Night"
5. "Mirror Mirror"
6. "The Cellar"
7. "Pictures in Red"
8. "Give Me Your Soul"
9. "The Floating Head"
10. "Cold as Ice"
11. "Shapes of Black"
12. "The Girl in the Bloody Dress"
13. "Moving On"

I have all the KD/MF albums, but I gotta be honest. I'm really sick and tired of KD already. Nowadays I don't think much of his albums but before I was really big on them. I think Them, Abigail II, and The Puppet Master are the best he's ever done. Nothing comes close. Maybe Voodoo.

Really?

Phoenix Reign Drummer wrote:

Really?

Yeah, man. I lost interest already, ha. As for MF, I only listen to Dead Again, and 9.

You think those albums are better than Fatal Portrait, Abigail or Conspiracy? Maybe cause your younger.

Dead Again is the worst MF album. Kings voice just sounds bad. 9 is good though. I think my favorite is either Into The Unknown or In The Shadows

Phoenix Reign Drummer wrote:

You think those albums are better than Fatal Portrait, Abigail or Conspiracy? Maybe cause your younger.

Dead Again is the worst MF album. Kings voice just sounds bad. 9 is good though. I think my favorite is either Into The Unknown or In The Shadows

Dude, i listened to those albums 3,000 times for years. So yeah, definitely DA and 9 ARE better than Abigail, Conspiracy,.. I just can't listen to most of his work anymore. And ever since i started getting into singing, Kings voice and delivery has become increasingly annoying, lol.

Haha, way behind on this one, but Mercyful Fate/King are one of my favorites but I just got to this thread now.

Nuns Have No Fun, Melissa, and Don't Break The Oath: This original stretch from them still ranks as my absolute favorites, these albums totally blew my mind when I first got them, from the subject matter, to the time changes, to King's voice, to their sound, AWESOME smurf poo.

Fatal Portrait & Abigail are probably my favorite two King solos, great albums. While I like both Them & Conspiracy quite a bit, they lack a little bit when compared to their predecessors. The Eye is one album I really like as well, it was one of the first cd's I ever owned and I played the hell out of it, which is probably a big reason why haha. After that point all of KD's solo albums are pretty hit or miss, songs I like from each, but no wholly badass records after that until...THE PUPPETMASTER, awesome album.

Mercyful Fate's 90's material I think is a notch above, well at first anyway, In The Shadows, Time, and Into the Unknown are all classics.

Better late than never.

I've been revisiting the Mercyful Fate and early King Diamond solo albums thanks to this thread. It had been YEARS since I heard most of this stuff and I'm a little surprised how fresh and exciting this material still sounds.

In The Shadows was particularly fun to revisit, I literally hadn't heard that album since my cassette player broke in 1995 or so...

Thanks again for this most excellent thread!

detuned wrote:

I've been revisiting the Mercyful Fate and early King Diamond solo albums thanks to this thread. It had been YEARS since I heard most of this stuff and I'm a little surprised how fresh and exciting this material still sounds.

In The Shadows was particularly fun to revisit, I literally hadn't heard that album since my cassette player broke in 1995 or so...

Thanks again for this most excellent thread!

I was thinking of doing the same later, death metal put me in the mood for it.

In The Shadows was awesome. Great album to revisit. I remember watching Headbangers Ball when that album came out. King was on and they premiered the Egypt video. I was excited to watch that episode because I was just getting into Mercyful Fate/King Diamond. I was a little dissapionted though when King came on with no make up but it was still cool.

I just listened to The Eye and In The Shadows, both awesome albums.

Definetly. At first I wasn't sure what to think of the Eye since I really never listened to music like that at the time dealing with the subject matter and even the vocals. Something just clicked though after a while and made me wanting more and kept me listening. The Eye was a grower but when it finally clicked I realized how great the album actually is despite those damn drums.

Phoenix Reign Drummer wrote:

In The Shadows was awesome. Great album to revisit. I remember watching Headbangers Ball when that album came out. King was on and they premiered the Egypt video. I was excited to watch that episode because I was just getting into Mercyful Fate/King Diamond. I was a little dissapionted though when King came on with no make up but it was still cool.

I haven't listened to it that much so I will have to play it again sometime. As far as their '90s stuff goes, I definitely don't remember liking it as much as "Time" or "Into the Unknown".

Dave the Boss wrote:

Phoenix Reign Drummer wrote:

go ahead and rant. thats the whole reason for this

Haha, someday sir, someday. One of these days I'm going to post a ten day rant just about the greatness of The Oath's opening riff. Just pure metallic perfection.

Edited because this post made me look like a doofus.