Don't break the oath
| Don't break the oath | ||||
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| Studio album by Mercyful Fate | ||||
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Publication |
August 10, 1984 |
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| Label (s) | Combat Records , Roadrunner Records , RC Records, Music for Nations , Jigu Records Corporation | |||
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Format (s) |
LP, CD, MC, Picture Disc |
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Title (number) |
9 |
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running time |
47:30 |
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| occupation |
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Henrik Lund |
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Don't Break the Oath is the second album by the Danish heavy metal band Mercyful Fate .
History of origin
The band began working on Don't Break the Oath on April 30, 1984, and it took 19 days to complete. Much of the material had previously appeared on demos by the band, some under different names, with different lyrics or arrangements, and some was written before the debut album Melissa . Come to the Sabbath and The Oath were already finished when it came out; however, the band decided to use them for their second album. The album was recorded in May 1984 at Easy Sound Studios with Henrik Lund, who had also produced Melissa . Lund again asked the band to stay out of the studio until he was finished, but this time the band refused and came in anyway and didn't care about his reaction. Because of their presence, the musicians were able to make necessary changes to things like reverberation , echoes and vocals, which at the time had to be mixed manually. The album was released on August 10, 1984 shortly before a US tour in which Mercyful Fate played both as a main band in clubs and as an opening act for Motörhead in theaters.
Track list
- A Dangerous Meeting (Shermann) - 7:43
- Nightmare (Shermann) - 6:19
- Desecration of Souls (Shermann, Denner) - 4:54
- Night of the Unborn (Diamond) - 4:59
- The Oath (Diamond, Denner) - 7:31
- Gypsy (Shermann) - 3:08
- Welcome Princes of Hell (Diamond, Denner) - 4:03
- To One Far Away (Diamond) - 1:31
- Come to the Sabbath (Diamond) - 5:19
Style and texts
The production is more professional than on the previous Melissa . The album contains melodic, influenced by guitarists like Michael Schenker , e. Partly double layered guitar solos as well as a complex songwriting with many breaks . The content can be assigned to Black Metal , there are musical references to the early Iron Maiden, for example .
The album begins with A Dangerous Meeting , which is a slower track.
The next song, Nightmare , deals with a nightmare singer King Diamond had a few years earlier. In this he had dreamed of having seen a black book out of which a woman was brought to life. In his dream he tried to yell for help and for his brother, who was sleeping in the same room as Diamond at the time, but he couldn't get a sound out. The woman motioned for him to follow, and he felt compelled to do so. He found himself in the middle of a cove of 13 veiled, shadowy people who pointed at him and said he was living on borrowed time. Diamond woke up drenched in sweat.
Desecration of Souls is slower, but with a “grinding” double bass that contains relatively few changes in tempo. The A-side of the LP ends with Night of the Unborn , which tells of dormant souls in the run-up to a black mass .
The Oath , the first song on the B-side, has an oath of allegiance to Lucifer as lyrics. Although the band names Diamond and Denner as the authors, the text comes mostly verbatim from the black mass The Satanic Mass of the Coven- LP Witchcraft: Destroys Minds & Reaps Souls from 1969. Mercyful Fate takes over parts of the oath given by the high priest of a woman , to whom parts of the mass (previously spoken by the high priest at Coven). While Lucifer is called with the five names Satan , Beelzebub , Leviathan , Asmodeus and Abaddon with Coven, with Mercyful Fate it is Satan, Leviathan, Belial and Lucifer. This is followed by other parts of the oath. The oath of loyalty is followed by the quote "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law" from Aleister Crowley's Liber AL vel Legis , which also occurs in Coven, and the passage "Sicut erat in principio, et nunc, et semper, et in saecula saeculorum. Amen. ” (Roughly: “ As it was in the beginning, is now, and always will be, and in the ages of ages. Amen . ” ) From the Gloria Patri , in the English translation “ As it was at the beginning, is now, and ever shall be / World without end, Amen. ” according to ( Eph 3:21 EU ) in the King James Bible and Cranmer's Book of Common Prayer .
In Gypsy , the narrator turns to a gypsy who is supposed to look into her crystal ball and reveal her secrets. He learns that he and she are children of the devil and that she is part of him and his soul. It is speculated that the song could be autobiographical for Diamond.
The Welcome Princes of Hell , incorrectly referred to as the Welcome Princess of Hell , is written from the point of view of a person who hosts some beings from the underworld whom they refer to as friends. The lyrics are based on an experience Diamond was drinking with his brother and another member of the band, and his brother's glass suddenly rose about 30 inches from the table and slowly lowered it again without spilling a drop. All three present noticed this, and since King Diamond sees ghosts as his protectors, he felt uncomfortable about it. The later title Ghost of Change from the album Into the Unknown also refers to this experience.
To One Far Away is a one and a half minute instrumental piece that is played on an acoustic guitar, except for an electric guitar solo.
The last title Come to the Sabbath is again about a black mass and takes up the fictional character of Melissa, a witch who was killed by a priest and who was cursed here as part of a witch's sabbath , which repeatedly appears in Mercyful Fate .
Publications
For the Japanese market there was a CD pressing with the English language texts and Japanese translations.
In 1997 the album was re-released in a remastered version. This contains a demo version of Death Kiss , which later became A Dangerous Meeting and was originally called Walking Back to Hell .
reception
Gene Hoglan wrote in Braindamage that the album promised to be one of the classics of 1984. The production is much better, the sharp guitars of the predecessor have disappeared in favor of a good, grinding, dual guitar sound with some great harmonies and the rhythm section of Hansen and Buzz is one of the most technical there is, with Hansen making good use of his Harris influences. You have to know how to sing King Diamond or you have to hate it, he, Hoglan, love his voice, and Diamond is also a masterful lyricist. The band mastered the tempo changes, and each song managed the punch that many of the songs lacked on Melissa . In his opinion To One Far Away would have made a good intro, but it shouldn't have a title. The only negative point of criticism he mentioned was a break in the song Come to the Sabbath , which King Diamond stole from the intro to Stevie by Pat Travers , as in the song Demon Bell from the previous album Elements from Travers ' Snortin' Whiskey . In the United States , Don't Break the Oath reached number 202 on the Billboard charts shortly after its release there by Combat Records, and thus only almost in their top 200. The website Metal Rules took the album to number 1 in their top 50 extreme metal - albums; it is as essential and groundbreaking as Master of Puppets , The Number of the Beast or Screaming for Vengeance . The album is considered the best of the band. Fenriz from Darkthrone mentions that Don't Break the Oath is one of the most important albums for him and Nocturno Culto (also on Darkthrone). He thinks he has listened to the album continuously since 1985. In 2007, Rock Hard magazine put Don't Break the Oath at number 23 on its list of 500 titles. Editor-in-chief Götz Kühnemund wrote that the album was “the perfect link between the black metal and traditional metal scene ” and that it was “adored” in both camps.
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k Andy Allen: The complete biography of King Diamond. Don't Break The Oath. Coven Worldwide, archived from the original on September 19, 2010 ; accessed on August 30, 2012 (English).
- ^ Andy Allen: The complete biography of King Diamond. Melissa. Coven Worldwide, archived from the original on September 19, 2010 ; accessed on August 30, 2012 (English).
- ^ A b c Gene Hoglan : MERCYFUL FATE - "Don't Break the Oath" . In: Braindamage . No. 1 , 1984, p. 17th f . (English).
- ↑ a b c Rock Hard (Ed.): Best of Rock and Metal, Heel-Verlag, Königswinter 2007, ISBN 3-89880-517-4 , p. 216f.
- ^ A b c Andy Allen: The complete biography of King Diamond. Mercyful Fate. Coven Worldwide, archived from the original on September 19, 2010 ; accessed on August 30, 2012 (English).
- ↑ a b EvilG: Top 50 Extreme Metal Albums. (No longer available online.) Metal Rules, archived from the original on May 22, 2011 ; accessed on September 23, 2010 (English). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Slobodan Trifunovic: HIKING METAL PUNKS FOREVER! Metal Sound, accessed on September 23, 2010 (English): "Oh, and the" don't break the oath "album is one of the most important for me and Ted - overall. I have listened to that album constantly since 1985 i think "
