The Eye (album)
| The Eye | ||||
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| King Diamond studio album | ||||
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Publication |
1990 |
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| Label (s) | Roadrunner Records | |||
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Format (s) |
CD, LP, Picture-LP |
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Title (number) |
11 |
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running time |
43:53 |
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| occupation |
King Diamond - vocals, keyboards Andy LaRocque - lead guitar Pete Blakk - rhythm guitar Hal Patino - bass guitar Snowy Shaw - drums Roberto Falcao - keyboards |
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The Eye is a heavy metal - album of King Diamond . It was released in 1990.
As a special feature among many heavy metal albums that contain individual thematically closed songs, King Diamond often tells a coherent story. Also, The Eye is such a concept album .
The Eye is a magical medallion that hangs on a necklace. It is shaped like an eye with a small winged devil sitting on it. The specialty of this medallion is that it allows a glimpse into the past. Through the eye you can see the life and suffering stories of the previous owners.
The theme was implemented on the cover. The front shows the medallion on purple velvet . The reverse shows a public burning of witches . The witch wears the medallion on a chain around her neck.
composition
Five of the tracks were composed by King Diamond and four by his longtime partner Andy LaRocque . Andy LaRocque composed a song with the new drummer Snowy Shaw. The lyrics were written by King Diamond.
This is the first album that was no longer recorded with the original drummer Mikkey Dee , who had to leave the band due to excessive drug use. Dee was the drummer of the band's four previous albums. For the drum parts, Snowy Shaw was brought on board for the first time , who played all parts with an electronic drum kit .
A lot of keyboards and synthesizers are used in the compositions . However, these are used less for creating atmospheric spherical soundscapes, but mainly for artificial instruments such as B. Church organ , violin , violoncello , harpsichord , xylophone and double bass . These underline the mood of the album similar to that of film music . They also have a symbolic character: the organ is the symbol of the church and church institutions. The violin is the symbol of the devil .
Typical of the album is the singing of King Diamond. He often sings in falsetto . To do this, he uses falsetto for the texts of the female characters, but also for ordinary parts. He also needs his voice for effects such as B. Laughter or croaking voices. These sound similar to the voices of the Gremlins from the film of the same name .
Track list
- Eye of the Witch - 3:47 (Diamond)
- The Trial (Chambre Ardente) - 5:13 (Diamond) - artificial church organ.
- Burn - 3:42 (Diamond) - artificial violin.
- Two Little Girls - 2:41 (Diamond) - pure keyboard piece: artificial xylophone, violoncello, double bass.
- Into the Convent - 4:47 (LaRocque - Shaw)
- Father Picard - 3:19 (Blakk)
- Behind these Walls - 3:45 (Diamond) - artificial harpsichord
- The Meetings - 4:31 (LaRocque)
- Insanity - 3:00 (LaRocque) - instrumental: just undistorted electric guitars (lead and rhythm guitar) at the beginning, later distorted electric guitars, keyboard, bass and drums
- 1642 Imprisonment - 3:31 (LaRocque)
- The Curse - 5:42 (Diamond)
The plot
The characters in these stories really lived. The stories take place during the French Inquisition . One tells of a witch burning in the middle of the 15th century and the other of fornication in a French convent between 1607 and 1647.
The story has three time levels. The songs Eye of the Witch and The Curse are the anonymous narrator's time level: In Eye of the Witch , the narrator plunges into the past. The listener only learns that the medallion has this magical ability in the final song, The Curse .
The songs The Trial (Chambre Ardente) and Burn tell of the torture and execution of Jeanne Dibasson, condemned as a witch, by Gabriel Nicolas de la Reynie , who was an executioner at the Chambre ardente , the court for death at the stake in Paris . He conducted the research on witches himself. The test carried out on Jeanne Dibasson by de la Reymie was the needle sample ( The Trial (Chambre Ardente) ). Found guilty, Jeanne Dibasson was burned at the stake ( Burn ).
Years later, in the song Two Little Girls , two girls find the medallion on the ground where Jeanne Dibasson was burned. One girl lifts it up from the ashes, and when an argument breaks out over who may have the locket, the other girl ( Madeleine Bavent ) accidentally looks in the eye. Shocked by the past seen by Jeanne Dibasson, the song Into the Convent turns to father Pierre David , who is chaplain of the Louviers convent . He seduces the girl and sexually abuses her. He later dies at a mass when he looks into Madeleine's medallion. Madeleine looked for the medallion before the fair, found it and wore it to protect it from further attacks.
Mathurin Le Picard becomes the new chaplain of the convent ( Father Picard ). He continues the sexual abuses of his predecessor and mixes drugs in the communion wine for the nuns to make them compliant.
In the song Behind These Walls , Madeleine shows certain mental disorders from the drugs. She can't remember anything anymore. The only thing she can remember are screams, probably from her memory of looking into the locket and the story of the torture and execution of Jeanne Dibasson. She also had great doubts about Chaplain Picard.
The song The Meetings tells of the birth of a child by Madeleine Bavent and the crucifixion of the same by Le Picard and other members of the convent during a black mass .
This is followed by an instrumental piece called Insanity ("Mental Illness"). Diamond indicates here that Madeleine went mad as a result of what went on in the convent.
In the following song, 1642 Imprisonment , Diamond tells that Madeleine Bavent was jailed for her mental illness.
The story ends with the song Curse . There Diamond lets the narrator of the story reveal the secret of the locket. The narrator now owns this medallion and was able to see through the past and learn and tell the story of Jeanne Dibasson and Madeleine Bavent.
The people
The following people existed:
- Jeanne Dibasson was convicted of a witch in the mid-15th century and burned at the stake.
- Gabriel Nicolas de la Reynie was an executioner at the Chambre ardente in Paris and responsible for the conviction of Jeanne Dibasson.
- Madeleine Bavent joined the Louviers convent in 1625 when she was eighteen and was raped by a priest. She died in prison in 1647.
- Father Pierre David was the convent's chaplain until his death in 1628.
- Mathurin Le Picard was chaplain of the convent from 1628 until his death in 1642.
reception
The German magazine Rock Hard named The Eye the third best album of the month with a grade point average of 8.83 out of a maximum of 10 points. Frank Albrecht wrote in his review that after previous criticism of the productions of King Diamond, a record has now been produced whose quality is reminiscent of Mercyful Fate times. Breaks and tempo changes can now be heard more and more on the record and he is increasingly using the keyboard. In conclusion, Albrecht draws: “It's just refreshing to hear this record, because the tracks offer a lot of variety, the record was produced first-class and there are sound collages like 'Two Little Girls' to be heard only at König's. In my opinion, 'The Eye' is the king's strongest work since ' Don't Break The Oath ' ”.
Individual evidence
- ^ Frank Albrecht: King Diamond . The Eye. In: Rock Hard . No. 44 , p. 52 ( rockhard.de [accessed April 4, 2014]).