Mercyful Fate
Melissa

THE REVIEW

Hello, this is my first review and I want to begin with one of my favorite bands, Mercyful Fate. We are in 1983 and after a long series of demos and EPs, Mercyful Fate releases their first album. The line-up features King Diamond on vocals, Hank Shermann and Michael Denner on guitars, Timi Hansen on bass, and Kim Ruzz on drums. Their sound is halfway between power and black metal combined with satanic themes and the extraordinary falsetto voice of King.

The opener is "Evil," one of my favorites; musically very varied, it boasts lyrics about a zombie, a soldier of hell, who tortures a woman, and after the funeral, digs up the corpse to violate her. With the second song "Curse Of The Pharaohs," slower with an intro resembling "2 Minutes to Midnight" by Iron Maiden, we fly into mysterious Egypt. "Into the Coven" features an intro with 2 solos: one acoustic guitar and one electric, then continues with solos, tempo changes, and falsetto screams. While the first 3 songs were quite similar, the album takes a violent turn with "At the Sound of the Demon Bell," where the malice that the lyrics exude can be perceived impressively. "Black Funeral" is a concentrate of satanism and cruelty in just 2 and a half minutes and acts as a forerunner to the masterpiece of the album, "Satan's Fall," lasting 11 minutes, where rhythm changes, solos, and screams follow each other at an impressive speed until about halfway through the piece everything stops and a sweet arpeggio emerges. But this calm lasts little, and the guitars return along with a voice that comes very close to rap, closing the song. The last track is the title track which, taking up the sweet arpeggio from the previous song, tells the story of the witch Melissa, worshiped by King, who was burned at the stake. The song ends with the words whispered by King: "I think Melissa's still with us" and with them, the album also concludes. In my CD version, there is also the bonus track "Black Masses," which was on the B-side of the single "Black Funeral."

Ultimately, this is a great album, perhaps only beaten by the follow-up "Don't Break the Oath." A curiosity: Metallica did a medley of the songs from this album in Garage Inc.