Year: 1984
Chronological position: Sophomore
Genre: "Blackened" heavy metal
Expectations before listening: That I'll love it as long as I don't take it too seriously

Tracklist:

"A Dangerous Meeting"
"Nightmare"
"Desecration of Souls"
"Night of the Unborn"
"The Oath"
"Gypsy"
"Welcome Princes of Hell"
"To One Far Away"
"Come to the Sabbath"


Alright, I've hesitated too long. It was time I sat down and gave this a listen, after all the good things I've heard about Mercyful Fate (and this album in particular) and King Diamond's vocal skills. The reason I waited was because of the satanic themes on the album, but after hearing Venom, deciding to not take metal all that seriously and deciding that I can enjoy someone's work without necessarily agreeing with their personal opinions (unless it's Varg and the likes, I'm not at that point yet and I likely won't go that far, either), I thought I could handle this.

Well, the album kicks off with A Dangerous Meeting, one of my favorites from the album because of its excellent riffing and melody in addition to the rather... mild lyrics. The follow-up, Nightmare, is also a great track, and I just love the synthesized instrumental in the middle of it. Another outstanding track is The Oath, which is, lyrically, the heaviest track on the album, and has some good organ in it to support the powerfulness. Even though Gypsy is the shortest (and least progressive) of the non-instrumental tracks, I think it's a pretty good song. There's also Welcome Princes of Hell, a solid song which starts out a bit slower than the other tracks but still contains some great soloing. Following it there is a short instrumental, To One Far Away, and then Come to the Sabbath which brings the album to a close.

Well, what can I say? This is some great metal I surely would've missed if I were only a little less open-minded. King Diamond's vocals are fantastic, and he manages to do the falsetto without inducing ear-bleeding. Note that even though I wrote "blackened" heavy metal as this album's genre, this musically sounds more like Iron Maiden than say, Bathory or Immortal. The only blackened parts of this are the lyrics and imagery.

5/5