Archive for the ‘mercyful fate’ Category
King Diamond Concert Review, Austin, TX, November 8, 2014
It’s tough writing reviews sometimes because I have trouble being objective when trying to talk about seeing some of my favorite bands.
There was something incredibly special about last night’s King Diamond show that I just don’t know if I can put my finger on it or properly describe in words better than just saying, “That was fucking awesome!”
And it was. It was fucking awesome. Really fucking awesome.
I’ve loved King Diamond (KD) since Abigail came out. That album had me delve back in time to quickly get into Fatal Portrait and Mercyful Fate. But Abigail is #1 for me in KD’s catalog.
I’ve see King twice before tonight (’88/2000) and Fate twice (’93/’99). All of those shows were special in their own ways, especially that ’88 show on the Them tour. King sounded great in all 4 of those shows. With it being 14 years since the last time I had seen him, I had concerns that his voice wouldn’t be what it once was. That thought was quickly removed from my head once they broke into the opener, The Candle. They quickly kept it running hard and heavy with Sleepless Nights and Welcome Home which went over very well with the crowd. Everyone knows the “grandma song”.
They mixed it up with songs from Them, Puppet Master and Give Me Your Soul…Please, not to mention 2 Mercyful Fate songs, Evil and Come To The Sabbath. It was a very metal crowd that was very into the show. King’s stage set up was over the top filled with a giant goat’s head pentagram and upside crosses.
Andy LaRouque and Mike Wead were shredding it as expected. Matt Thompson did a fine job handling Mikkey Dee’s drum lines, but he’s no Mikkey Dee. Few are. That’s no slight to Matt, he was killer. Pontus Edberg held down the bass perfectly. The mix was great, especially for an outside venue.
Highlights for me were Sleepless Nights (love that drum line), Family Ghost and especially Black Horsemen. That song is the best ending to any album I have ever heard and it was the perfect closer to last night’s set. It gave me goosebumps last night and I have them again writing this. It was such a powerful show all the way around. I did notice, however, that King had a female backup singer that sang some of the high notes along with him. I tried to listen to the difference in the voices (his and hers) and really couldn’t tell. There were times that he was hitting the notes perfectly and she wasn’t singing at all, so maybe she was just there for harmony and melody purposes.
What a great fucking show!
Ignitor Mix Tape ’85 Review
My history with Ignitor isn’t that deep as I only picked up on them when Jason McMaster joined the band in 2009ish. That doesn’t detract from the Erika Tandy era at all, I just went backwards with their discography. Ignitor is quality metal, no matter which era you’re listening to.
Ignitor’s latest offering is a download only album of classic covers. It’s a great mix of classic metal covering some of my favorites bands.
McMaster was made to cover all of these bands giving them his unique vocal flair and Ignitor in general stayed pretty true to these songs without taking any real liberties in the music. The Stuart “Batlord” solos are all pretty incredible and the opening solo to Into the Coven gave me chills when I first heard it. He completely nailed the tone. While I admit that I’m not the biggest fan of Exodus’ Bonded By Blood or Exciter’s Violence and Force, these covers are well done. I’m especially impressed with their version of Anthrax’s Deathrider. Fistful of Metal often gets overlooked in Anthrax conversations. The cover of Highway Star has the proper intro like Deep Purple’s original and the heaviness of Metal Church’s version. I’m also a huge fan of Witching Hour. And you gotta love that album cover!
You can stream the album here and I recommend that you buy it from iTunes or Amazon ASAP! Both are under $8!
Quality metal covers from a quality metal band.
“DEATHRIDER” – Anthrax
“FAST AS A SHARK” – Accept
“VIOLENCE AND FORCE” – Exciter
“INTO THE COVEN” – Mercyful Fate
“WITCHING HOUR” – Venom
“HELL BENT FOR LEATHER” – Judas Priest
“A LESSON IN VIOLENCE” – Exodus
“HIGHWAY STAR” – Deep Purple
King Diamond – August 16, 2000
In 2000, I still had my online music store (Acacia Music) and was still getting into shows free that had bands on Century Media and Metal Blade Records as they were my 2 main wholesale distributors. Lucky me. This King Diamond show at famed Jaxx Nightclub was certainly one of them. Shdaows Fall, Deep and Babylon Whores opened up this show.
After the show I was hanging out behind the venue hoping to meet the King. I did get to speak with Andy LaRocque for a little bit and had him sign a few CDs for me, including my Death CD that he played on. He saw that both Chuck Schuldiner had signed it and asked me where I got his signature. Cool dude.
Someone tapped me on the should and said, “There’s King!” He was getting in a car, no makeup on and I just put my hand out and said, “King, thanks for all the great music over the years!” He shook my hand as he was getting in the car and said, “Thanks! Gotta run, man. Thanks for coming.” Perfect. I was totally happy with that.
Ghost – Opus Eponymous
Have you heard Ghost yet? This new band hails from Sweden. Doesn’t seem that too much is known about them. Singer wears a costume and I 
sort of think this may be a joke band of sorts, like Brujeria. The flip side to my claim is that it’s definitely a listenable album. I bought it off of iTunes for $8.91 and have listened to it about 10 times in the last week. They are very retro 70’s stoner rock sounding and really seeming to take a cue from Blue Oyster Cult. Lots of simple yet effective vocal harmonies. It’s not a heavy record but I do like it. It’s sort of sloppy here and there and sounds very analog. No heavy distortion or anything like that…think of the Witchcraft albums, it’s got production more like those. Very stripped down and basic. Some of the vocal phrasing reminds me a bit of early Mercyful fate as well, which is not a bad thing.
I do find it funny how overtly Satanic their lyrics are. Just think Eric Bloom singing about his love for the Devil. haha.
Overall it’s a fun album and I do recommend it. The USA release comes out soon on CD but as stated before, it’s available pretty cheaply on iTunes. Get it! 7/10
The vids on YouTube don’t really do them much justice as I think this is an album that needs to be listened to from front to back.
The Metal Files 
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