Entry 526 - Mercyful Fate - Melissa

 

Style: Heavy metal, 1st wave black metal

Primary emotions: Kick ass heavy metal, uncontrollable urges to headbang

Thoughts: All hail satan! Yes hail satan!

This was one of the first records I ever bought. The cover is beat to shit but the record itself still plays pristine. 

I only found out a few months ago that the mix is on this version of Melissa is different than any other mix. This is the Megaforce records publication of Melissa. It has less multi-tracking of  King's vocals and adds some additional reverb in places to make up the difference. In the past I always thought the album sounded just a bit off from the digital, but I passed that off as the pressing being old or something was off about my sound system. It was something fundamentally different.

Melissa is a legendary album. It has some of the best riffs to come out metal on it; the opening riff of Evil being slightly syncopated making it sound intentionally awkward. Satan's Fall's first riff, when it comes in  I can't keep myself from headbanging. The title track and it's longing tone. There is not a single bad riff on here, every. single. riff. is good. How many bands can say they have an album like that? Not many.

The lyrical themes at the time were among the most extreme at that time. The band is essentially playing praise and worship music to satan. King Diamond repeatedly swears his allegiance to the depths below with his trademark falsetto.

His voice did take me a bit to get used to without knowing what was coming. I remember laughing out loud the first time the falsetto hit. I thought it was a joke. It's not, this is his chosen style. Despite how absurd it sounds at first, the style wore me down. Maybe burning the vocals into my brain scarred me. That said, this album would not sound nearly as good if anyone else was on vocals.

I've been on a journey lately of revisiting my musical roots. Mercyful Fate is a huge part of that and is one of the bands that cemented my love for metal in my youth. Easily one of my favorite albums of the 80's.