Mercyful Fate / King Diamond Discography

Quote :

Yea I read it somewhere. Maybe if you could make me an MP3 of it and send it toooo openurlife@aol.com ? Then I could tell

I'll have to bring the disc into work with me and make a rip. My home computer is down at the moment.

well... get on it haha

1984 would see the release of "Don't Break The Oath". If you thought the lyrical content on "Mellissa" was questionable, They would dig even deeper into Satanism and the Occult with "Don't Break The Oath." Most Notably with the song "The Oath". This album was a huge step up from "Melissa". The album was produced by Henrick Lund who they worked with previously. When he mixed "Melissa" He would not let the band in the room until he was finished with a song and then he would let them in to take a listen to what he did. If they didn't like it he would force them out of the room to remix it until they were satisfied. With "Don't Break The Oath" they finally put their foot down and insisted that they be part of the mixing process. "Don't Break The Oath" is a more layered album than their previous work.

This album would see Mercyful Fate headlining their own shows in the United States. Unfortunetly during the tour the band was slowly starting to dissolve, mostly due to Hank Shermann. Hank was getting influenced on doing a different style of music, but the rest of the band was not into it. Instead of finding a replacement for Hank the band decided to split up. Hank Shermann would go off to form his own more AOR orientated band called "FATE", which would eventually have no success and split up. King Diamond would start a new band with Michael Denner, and Timi "Grabber" Hansen from Mercyful Fate, Mikky Dee and Andy Laroque simply called "KING DIAMOND".

When I first heard this album I couldn't believe what I was hearing. First off a friend of mine made me a copy of this on cassette and it was in a different order. Basically it started off with "The Oath" through "Sabbath" and the second half was "Dangerous Meeting" through "Night Of The Unborn". It wasn't til I would be able to get the cd that I noticed the order was different. In a way I was a little bummed out because I think the way I originally heard it was better. Either way It is a great album, but to me the second half of the album totally blows away the first half.

Most of these songs were older songs that were written before "Melissa" but a lot of them had different names, slight music differences and lyrics. My least favorite songs off this album are "Nightmare", and "Night Of The Unborn". Thos e songs for some reason just seem out of place. This album would be a perfect 10 without those songs. My favorites are everything else. I honestly don't like the other songs more than the other the rest are all equally great. Also this is one of my all time favorite album covers. Maybe not too shocking nowadays but back when this was released I believe this really got to some people.




1."A Dangerous Meeting"
2."Nightmare"
3."Desecration of Souls"
4."Night of the Unborn"
5."The Oath"
6."Gypsy"
7."Welcome Princess of Hell"
8."To One Far Away"
9."Come to the Sabbath"

Classic, classic album!!!! Love it!!!!! The Oath bugs me lyrically, so I look at it as a horror movie when I listen to it. This one is even better than Melissa!!!!

This is a fantastic release! A step up from Melissa. Every song on it to me is just incredible. I think the standouts though are Gypsy and Come to the Sabbath.

thejokeriv wrote:

Classic, classic album!!!! Love it!!!!! The Oath bugs me lyrically, so I look at it as a horror movie when I listen to it. This one is even better than Melissa!!!!

The Oath kind of made me feel uncomfortable at first but after listening to it over and over again those lyrics are just friggin awesome. for someone to write something like that amazes me. Great stuff!

This was the first Mercyful Fate I owned and used to play my cassette over and over.

I loved 'The Oath' a song so evil that even the Pope would doubt his calling after hearing this track, one of my favorite albums of the 80's.

I think it sucks that after two classic albums they called it a day, I doubt they would have enjoyed the mainstream success that Metallica and Megadeth, but then again who would have thought that Slayer would become so successful so who knows.

This was definitily top shelf material when it hit the streets. The arrangements on this reach out and grab you by the throat. The songs are brutal, melodic and catchy as "HELL"....All at the same time.

One of my all time favorite bands. Unfortunately reunion-era MF stuff kinda bores me, but the first EP, Melissa and Don't Break the Oath are just three of the best heavy metal recordings ever. I could rant on for hours why they're so good, but I guess that's kind of a waste of my time, hehe.

go ahead and rant. thats the whole reason for this

I love the Fate. And being the rare one - I love all of their output. Of course the masterful, progressive dark heavy metal of the first two albums is especially dear to me and I think "Don't Break The Oath" is among the top of the top of the metal genre but I love all of it. Even the more raw at times speed/thrash stylings of "9" - in fact it has some of favourite Fate tunes in "Last Rites" or "Kiss Of Demon".

DON'T BREAK THE OATH is not only MF's high water mark but it's one of the greatest metal records of the '80s in my book. As I've said many a time before, "nothin' sez 'METAL' like putting a big flamin' Satan on your album cover!" I'm sure that album cover caused more than a few parental coronaries back in the day.

Again, the band is on fire all the way thru; there really isn't a bum track on that album. My personal faves would be "A Dangerous Meeting," "The Oath" and "Welcome Princess of Hell."

When I saw MF on the IN THE SHADOWS tour in '93 I bought a tour shirt that had the "Oath" cover on the front. Whenever my Mom was doing the laundry afterwards, I could always tell when she found that shirt in the pile because she'd say "Oooohhh, I DON'T LIKE THIS ONE!"

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.

FF I had that same shirt. Was that the one with King on the back? I loved that shirt. It all of a sudden dissappeared one day and I never saw it again. I'm sure It will eventually turn up somewhere. I think that shirt goes for big bucks now on ebay. I looked it up not too long ago.

I also had a newer Mercyful Fate shirt with king on the front and the logo with an upside down cross on the back. I was at Friendlys wearing that shirt and all of a sudden this religious person comes to me and hands me some jesus pamflet thing and says here read this. This will show you a Mercyful Fate. He was nice about it though, wasn't trying to be a jerk or anything. I thought that was kind of funny. Come to think of it theres another shirt that just went missing... damnit!

Phoenix Reign Drummer wrote:

FF I had that same shirt. Was that the one with King on the back? I loved that shirt. It all of a sudden dissappeared one day and I never saw it again. I'm sure It will eventually turn up somewhere. I think that shirt goes for big bucks now on ebay. I looked it up not too long ago.

Yep, that's the one. Big picture of King on the back with tour dates superimposed over it. Damn thing shrunk up after only a few washings so I never got to wear it much. It was around that time that I stopped buying t-shirts at every concert I went to, cuz so many of them turned out to be crappy quality.

[quote="Phoenix Reign Drummer"]FF I had that same shirt. Was that the one with King on the back? I loved that shirt. It all of a sudden dissappeared one day and I never saw it again. I'm sure It will eventually turn up somewhere. I think that shirt goes for big bucks now on ebay. I looked it up not too long ago.

quote]

Did ya leave out on the line ? Used to get my best shirts that way back in the day. Also had my share of shirts walk away when I hung em out.

haha no this was back when my mom did my wash and would get my clothes mixed up with my fathers cause he had a lot of black shirts.

Phoenix Reign Drummer wrote:

Does anyone have the original version of this? Supposedly on the original the song "Melissa" has a part somewhere, where there are no lyrics, but when it was re issued the lyrics were put in. I could probably just look myself I think I have the original as well as the remaster but I'm already in bed haha. If its not the cd version, the vinyl version might be different.

My copy is the Megaforce Records release from '83. Is that different than the RoadRunner version?

Sorry, I've been kind of busy with updating this but I will try and do it tonight before I end up falling asleep.

MG- It might be because I have the RoadRunner original and remaster and I believe they are both the same so when you get a chance send me an mp3 of that song.

Since Mercyful Fate broke up King wanted to continue making the music that he wanted to make, so he decided to start up another band simply using his name King Diamond.

The band would be made up of previous Mercyful Fate members Michael Denner and Timi Hansen (who by the way always for some reason changed his name to Grabber on occasion. Anyone know why?). The rest of the band was rounded out with Mikkey Dee on Drums and Andy LaRocque on Guitar. Unlike Mercyful Fate, King Diamond the band would consentrate writing about horror stories. In 1985 they would release a single entitled "No Presents For Christmas".


1."No Presents For Christmas"
2. Charon


Shortly after in 1986 a full length album was released entitled "Fatal Portrait". The songs "The Candle", "The Jonah", "The Portrait" and "Haunted" form a short story about (taken from wikipedia)

"Narrator sees a face in "every candle that [he] burns". This face speaks one word to him: Jonah. So he finds an old book, speaks a rhyme and frees the spirit of candle. It's the spirit of a little girl named Molly, who tells him her story, that happened seven years before. Mrs Jane kept her 4-year-old daughter Molly in the attic until she (Molly) died. Before, Mrs Jane painted Molly's portrait and put it above the fireplace, so that Molly would become immortal, however, Molly made the portrait speak to her mother, so that Jane would know about Molly's pain. Mrs Jane then speaks a rhyme and burns the portrait. A free spirit of Molly returns to haunt her until she goes insane."

The rest of the the songs on the album are of other things not related to the story. "Fatal Portrait" is also one of 2 albums that are not complete concept albums.


1. "The Candle"
2. "The Jonah"
3. "The Portrait"
4. "Dressed in White"
5. "Charon"
6. "Lurking in the Dark"
7. "Halloween"
8. "Voices From the Past" (Instrumental)
9. "Haunted"



This album is awesome. From the opening track with the chanting it really sets a mood for a hauting album. The only song that I'm not really to crazy about is "Halloween". For some reason King always plays that song along side "No Presents" I guess because they are songs that he has always ended with I just think there are so many better songs on this album they he should be doing instead. Halloween is the weaker track to me. I've grown to like it though. I used to hate it all together haha.

The album was remastered with 2 extra tracks "No Presents For Christmas" and "The Lake" which is another great song that could have just been included on the album in the first place.

This album was just the beginning though. Next we'll talk about what is arguably one of the best King Diamond albums or one of the best albums EVER! Also what happened to Timi Hansen and who is he really? Timi Hansen, Timi Grabber and why that silly eye patch? All these questions may be answered. Stay tuned....

Charon is one of my favorite solo King Diamond tunes.

GREAT album!!!!!! I remember one of my friends went to Europe for a few weeks on a trip with the German club from high school and came back with this album that had not yet been released in the US! I remember being excited to hear it - great frakin release!!!!!

Great great album ! First song I ever heard off this was Dressed In White and it blew me away. It took me a long time to get it and the one I finally did purchase is the remastered disc with the 2 bonus tracks (both excellent as well)

Excellent album but I did not buy this album til several years after it was released and loved it.

It has been awhile since I have listened to this album but musically it picked up where Mercyful Fate left off which makes sense since solo and the band shared the same musicians.

I have to agree with detuned 'Charon' is one of the best tracks recorded by King Diamond

FATAL PORTRAIT is my fave KD release, mainly because it sounds like the third Mercyful Fate album. All of the tracks on it were intended for the next MF before the band split up. After this one, to be honest, my interest in KD's solo material was casual (at best) because it didn't match up to the MF days (at least to me).