Mercyful Fate - Don't Break the Oath (1984)^{Release ID: 401}

I'm not going to get into the divisive nature of King Diamond's vocals here, I am sure I have addressed that issue elsewhere. Let's just accept for now that I actually do enjoy his idiosyncrasies and move on. The simple fact was, and remains, that Mercyful Fate wrote some absolute killer metal tracks. They gave Iron Maiden and Judas Priest-like melodic riffs a more evil bent with overtly occult lyrics, although still firmly in the literary or cinematic realm rather than the Anton LaVey serious satanism of later black metal bands. This, coupled with KD's histrionic vocals and early version of corpsepaint gave the impression that the Danes were pushing the envelope of sheer metalness ever further. MF were undoubtedly a major influence on the early exponents of extreme metal and the metal landscape may have ended up sounding quite a bit different without them.

I absolutely love the band's debut album, "Melissa" and it has several of not only my favourite Mercyful Fate tracks, but favourites of traditional heavy metal as a whole. Songs like "Evil", "Into the Coven" and "Satan's Fall" have riffs with the ability to get my head nodding and feet tapping whilst King Diamond's vocal hystrionics simultaneously set the hairs on the back of my neck on end. I think it is more than fair to say that there hadn't been anything quite like Mercyful Fate before. The band had a big task on their hands, then, to follow such an impactful record with one of similar quality that would cement their legacy as metal frontrunners. Ten months later they dropped "Don't Break the Oath" onto an expectant public and the rest, as they say, is history.

I think the first thing that hit me about "Don't Break the Oath" is that KD seems to have dialled back the vocal excesses and delivers a more controlled performance behind the mic. That doesn't mean that he took a conventional approach to his singing duties by any means and if you didn't like his vocals on the debut, then this is unlikely to change your mind as he still hits those theatrical falsettos fairly regularly, just not in as over-the-top a manner as on "Melissa". What about the riffs then? Well, DBtO is as jam-packed with riffs as a Snickers bar is with peanuts and every one registers pretty fucking high on Sonny's patented head-bangability scale. These riffs will be bouncing around your brain long after the record has ended, probably getting you very strange looks should you be using public transport at the time. On top of this Shermann and Denner's guitar work is exemplary with an energy and vitality that sounds genuinely thrilling whenever they let rip with those dynamic solos. The songwriting here also sounds more mature than on the debut, the tracks resolving themselves with a little more complexity than before. This ain't prog though and the memorable hooks are still there in vast numbers, they are just not the be all and end all on this album.

This is certainly a worthy follow-up to "Melissa" and is arguably a better record, even though the hooks on the debut are incredible, but there feels to be a bit more meat on the bones here which, when coupled with King's more restrained performance add up to one of the best traditional heavy metal records of the 1980s.

Some people don't like this album. SOME PEOPLE HAVE LOST THEIR MINDS!

What you get with Mercyful Fate is all of the things that you love about Iron Maiden or Judas Priest, but more evil. Dualing guitars, high (high AF in this case) vocals, thumping bass, pounding drums, it's all here. It's just that subject matter is now centered on satanism, the occult, and black masses. These are not topics that appeal to me, but this is the kind of album where I can put on my halloween costume so to speak and get in on all the evil fun! I will come to your black mass as long as there is badass heavy metal somewhere between the orgy and the virgin sacrifice, and if Mercyful Fate is the church band then I know it's gonna be there.

So for a guy like me, this is a 4 star album, but if you really like the added satanic themes then it probably ticks all your boxes for a full 5.

Ok, I am done. I have been listening to this off and on for a few weeks being saved in my library and I have had problems listening to this every time. I just finished the album in it's entirely as of starting to write this review. I could not figure out why this album was so difficult for me to put on and listen to until I turned it on today and with no distractions while I cleaned my place and took it all in. I do not have a problem with King Diamonds vocals, I think they are a unique and powerful tool for this band and I think for the most part the instrumentation accompanies it well. The guitars and drumming on this album can be absolutely supreme with some of the best riffs I've heard of the early years and with King Diamond's succinct screams they can be mesmerizing. However, my problem with this album that I never noticed before is the abrupt tone changes. They happen so frequently, I first noticed in Nightmare when I was really enjoying one passage then the drums suddenly slowed down but then one of the guitars stayed it's same pace while the other did a mini solo for about 20 seconds then it would subtly go back to a resemblance of the same melody I was enjoying before but I was already snapped out of it again. I call it the anti-breakdown, because there were plenty of times where a solid breakdown could've taken the place of these frustrating moments for me and it would've done nicely. Now I understand that a breakdown was not something that was really a thing in '84 but whatever you call what they were doing didn't work for me and it made for a very difficult listen. I couldn't just put this on and want to listen to it, even before I noticed what was happening when I would have it in the background over the years. I always debated that I think King Diamond is revolutionary to show different vocal styles that work but I still had it in the back of my mind was that he really didn't fit, but all these listens later and I can't just take the whiplash that these songs give me. It's hard to continue to like something I get really invested in and headbang to and it transitions out of it so unexpectedly then I just get angry cause I won't more of that. I lose my interest and I don't think I will listen to this again.

2-star because I can't deny that when it is really good, it's great in the small doses before the changes in song but I almost think that is too high for me but that's where I stand.

King Diamond was and always will be the weakest link in Mercyful Fate.  Quite an opening statement for a review of one of metal's best known albums I know, but one that reflects my opinion of the band perfectly.  No attempt at controversy here folks, just an opinion built on my experience of most of their discography.  As a presence he is undeniably an asset.  Menacing, foreboding and threatening, his very face is iconic in terms of all the dark and nefarious things that our preferred genre of music espouses.  Vocally though he is poor, his attempts at the higher end of the scale of notes coming off as farcical in the main.  He's far better when he drops to the more grim and murky style he deploys that suits the overall tone of the music so much better.

Right now your asking yourself "why he's given it such a decent rating if he hates King that much?".  The fact is that for all my criticism of the vocals I cannot neglect the fact that the rest of the artistry on this album is excellent.  In all reviews that I write where I score an album low it is because something catastrophic encompasses the whole experience that makes it an irretrievable disaster.  This is not the case here.  Wherever else I look on the record the quality is high (with the odd dip of course), whether it is the songwriting or the musicianship, neither are diminished in terms of their impact by my beef with the vocals.

Hank Shermann and Michael Denner truly show us what capable and intelligent six-stringers they are on this record, wielding their axes with poise and guile.  On more than one occasion they rescue a track and make the directionless or clunky structure of a track seem manageable and clearer just by their presence.  "Grabber" and Ruzz provide the real rhythm in the engine room giving the record legs when it needs to run faster and also able to subtlety control the pace when it need reining in a tad.

So "Don't Break The Oath" is not a complete album for me as it suffers badly at the vocal chords of King and even the sterling band that sits around him can't elevate it to the levels of praise that the album seems to get across the board.  It does not mean however it is a bad or even an average record, more just lacking in one important and influential area.

It's amazing what a good riff can do.

That's a solid piece of groundwork of heavy metal music (and a number of other forms too), and in Don't Break the Oath, Mercyful Fate demonstrate a masterful understanding of this idea, and how to combine those riffs with absolute conviction in what they're doing to craft something special.

Much like Melissa before it, Oath isn't strictly black metal, even in its earliest form, but it's a clear influence on the emerging style. Despite the ever-present cheese, the album is unrelentingly focused on the dark side of metal music, on the satanic, the devilish, the wicked and demonic. Like Venom or Sodom, they played a role in this new branch of metal music, and this gives the album a great identity of its own. Gone are the glorious charges into battle or the fantastical adventures. This is an album of blasphemy, devil worship and gleeful sacrilege.

This crystal clear intention gives the whole thing a great sense of focus, and the band's wonderful sense of showmanship is what truly sells it. Like King's wailing falsetto, the whole thing is certainly an acquired taste, and can seem silly, but it's all such diabolical fun to just go along with it. Everything is done with such confidence and poise, it's impossible to resist, especially when coupled with the obvious skill on show in the quality riffs and memorable songs. "Come to the Sabbath" is a call to attend the ritual that cannot be turned down, "A Dangerous Meeting" tells a dark tale you can't stop listening to, and there are few songs as theatrically brilliant as "The Oath": every element of it, the insanely good riffs, King's epic cries, the rising darkness of the intro, it's all put together like a dark twin of Dio's "Holy Diver".

Yes, Don't Break the Oath is cheesy and over-the-top, and no good metalhead cares, because this is what it's all about.

Choice cuts: A Dangerous Meeting, Night of the Unborn, The Oath, Come to the Sabbath