Melissa (Mercyful Fate album)
Occupation
- Vocals, keyboard, harpsichord: King Diamond
- Electric Guitar: Hank Sherman
- Electric Guitar: Michael Denner
- E -Bass: Timi " Grabber" Hansen
- Drums: Kim Ruzz
Melissa is the debut album by Danish heavy metal band Mercyful Fate.
Genesis
Prehistory
The material on the album came from some of the demo recordings of the predecessor band Brats; Curse of the Pharaohs was as Brats demo track Night Riders, but was renamed after King Diamond had changed the text; the original text came from Brats bassist. Love Criminals, the first written by Mercyful Fate song that became Into the Coven, what should be the title of the album originally.
First versions of the songs Curse of the Pharaohs, Evil and Satan's case began on March 19, 1983 at a live session for the Friday Rock Show on BBC Radio 1 within 8 hours in the Maida Vale Studios and The later from the BBC sound engineer Tony Wilson mixed and produced. The piece of Satan 's fall was composed by guitarist Hank Sherman. During the recording of the song has been growing steadily and has a length of over 11 minutes, the longest piece of tape until Dead Again was released.
In April 1983, the band traveled to the Netherlands to give some concerts. However, a planned simultaneous release of the debut album did not take place, since Mercyful Fate her label Rave On Records left and a new examined in order to allow for better funding and better conditions for an album can.
The BBC recordings were broadcast on 22 April 1983, due to numerous repeated exposures. The Dutch label Roadrunner Records was through these recordings attention to Mercyful Fate, and contacted the band in May 1983. Subsequently, a contract for six albums was completed.
Recordings
On July 18, 1983 Mercyful Fate began with the recordings in the Easy Sounds Studios in Copenhagen. The band asked Henrik Lund, co- owner of the studio to produce the album, for which he paid $ 1,000 the label. Although the band had more time than their EP Mercyful Fate, she had to divide the time because they had less than two weeks for recording and production.
Lund produced alone and did not allow the musicians to be present during mixing; when he was done, he let them hear the mix and express change requests. After that, the band had to go back to the door and wait for the next mix. The band found this way of working irritating, but Sherman says in retrospect, too many people in the room were counterproductive. As the lead vocals should be recorded, this was an unusual experience for Lund, because Diamond had brought a small altar and red lights in the studio to create a certain atmosphere. Lund was also confused at first because Diamonds lyrics.
The label wanted Mercyful Fate grossed a cover - version, so the band tried to play Led Zeppelin's Immigrant Song. The band rejected this, however, since it did not work well in her opinion. According to Sherman came Diamonds singing so close to the Robert Plant approach that one could make people believe it was really Led Zeppelin.
Publication
On November 26, 1983, the album was released. While the EP a sought import and the BBC recording was just to get on bootleg cassettes in the United States, Melissa was the first Mercyful Fate - release, which officially appeared in the United States.
The name of the album comes from a human skull, the diamond was given and the band at that time related in appearances and can also be seen on the record covers. Various damage to the skull inspired Diamond also the title song of the album. The skull was stolen during an appearance on 21 January 1984 at The Paradiso Theatre in Amsterdam because of inattentive security guard.
The album was in the U.S. first ( licensed by Roadrunner Records) distributed through Megaforce Records, and later directly via Roadrunner Records. With the re-release of the album, new vocal tracks found on a particular passage of the title song. Also, the first version had a very dense to echo the voice, while the voice of the second version had no such effects. Diamond, these differences could not explain. In his opinion, it was physically impossible to add the vocals a bit, because the label did not have the 24 -track master; the only own the band. Some fans think beyond the song on the spot at the Diamond " Satan 's cross upon the wall" sings "? What message is this " to hear the reverse message. Diamond himself denies ever having backward messages inserted in his songs. All messages are heard during normal playback and dark enough that it was not necessary to add hidden messages.
In December 1983, the song Black Funeral additionally appeared as a single; the B-side Black Masses was recorded along with the album, but away from this.
Title list
The music was written by Hank Sherman, lyrics by King Diamond.
Style and texts
Due to the influences from the epic hard rock of the 1970s, the guitar in the first song Evil are "somewhat similar to Thin Lizzy than Iron Maiden, and the riffing still shows cross-references specifically to British institutions ". The intro to Into the Coven " flirts with classical melodies ." The progressive -rock -heavy Satan 's case, until the release of Dead Again the longest piece of Mercyful Fate, contains about 16 different riffs and is lyrically inspired by Diamonds discovery of the Satanic Bible by Anton Szandor LaVey.
Reception
The album was well received by fans and critics and quickly became a bestseller. The editors of the Rock Hard took it in 2007 in her 500 titles comprehensive leaderboard on the 34th place on. Frank Albrecht called Melissa an absolute " milestone in the heavy -metal history " and placed particularly " brilliant songs " as Evil or Satan 's fall out.