Roadrunner Records - 1983
10/10
As the spooky season fully sets in and permeates my music and film choices, it should be no surprise that Mercyful Fate makes its way into heavy rotation. Melissa is a pretty undisputed classic within the metal sphere, and while I've loved this record since my first listen many years ago, it's only grown as something even more significant. It's no secret that King Diamond and co. put a heavy emphasis on the Satanic themes and dark undertones, but to this day I don't think anything they've ever done has matched the cold feeling found on the debut. This can be attributed to several different angles, all completely divorced of the lyrics alone.
On an objective front, it's very impressive that Melissa can more or less invoke this lone feeling under a scope of nearly contradicting proportions. The record is only seven songs long, two of them in the back end being written with a completely different backbone than the front five, without a sense of exiting the record's focus. Themes of the occult may help them stick together, but it really comes down to the ghostly tones that Denner and Sherman are able to breath through their dual attacks. Obviously, this pairs with King's signature howls and a somewhat soft production that burrs all edges in a way that invokes a liminal atmosphere. By this, I mean the riffs contain plenty of heavy aggression, but they exchange blistering sharpness you'd find in the rising thrash metal scene for glowing tint that just feels haunting; perhaps unconventional.
The easiest example to use would be the intro to "Black Funeral," the record's shortest number that somehow makes one of the strongest impacts. There's no denying the heaviness of those rhythms, but the blow is delivered with a higher pitched, softer tip that feels more discomforting and jarring. You can find this everywhere, though, whether it's in the almost baroque intro of "Into The Coven" or the howling vocals that compliment the slower, fiercer "Curse Of The Pharoah's." But if you strip all of this away, you'll ultimately find catchy rhythms, melody, and poetic clarity. Opener "Evil" makes this pretty clear with it's damn-near rock 'n roll aesthetic, and "At The Sound Of The Demon Bell" drives that home with even more intricate composition.
Yet, we haven't even touched on the giants that flip all of this on its head. The five aforementioned tracks could easily lead one to believe that it's all just a big Halloween scare, until you fall into the endless abyss that is "Satan's Fall." The famous sixteen-riff masterpiece removes the melodic front, exchanges catchy licks for a disturbing, disorienting bottom, and give's King some of the most ghoulish outcries on the album. Gone are any senses of security or safety, until the resolution near the end that breaks into speed metal territory. Winding this down with "Melissa" was the perfect way to end things in an unclear way, once more emphasizing that liminal feeling we get from the start. I'm still astounded at how such varying degrees of writing can feel like one perfect, lineal path from catchy temptation straight into Hell. A discomfort that we enjoy, similar to watching Clive Barker's Hellraiser.
Mercyful Fate themselves, and many bands that would follow would never replicate this formula perfectly. It may have helped shape the rising black metal movement, but you'd be hard pressed to find any black metal in here. It's spooky, and has an identity of its own, but that doesn't make it any more than a masterfully crafted heavy metal record. Removing the tones and production, some of these songs wouldn't feel out of place on a '70s Scorpions record. Satanic lyrics are something other bands were exercising at the time, face paint had been around since KISS and Alice Cooper, and pummeling beats could fit right in with thrash. But that's what makes this so special. It's a sum of its parts, of things we've seen before, presented with a new, frightening identity before coarse shrieking, blast beats and tremolos were ever needed. Much like Slayer's debut for completely different reasons, this scratches an itch that nothing else can reach.
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