King Diamond - The Eye (1990)^{Release ID: 673}

King Diamond is certainly a one-of-a-kind and equally certainly isn't to everyone's taste. Me, I've never had much trouble with him beyond an initial exposure to Mercyful Fate that caught me off-guard. Once I'd come to terms with his unique vocal style I became quite the fan. Now, by far the biggest reason for this is that King writes awesome heavy metal songs and so consequently I have been able to accomodate his vocal idiosyncrasies, to the point where I now find them quite endearing. He is also one never to shy away from a horror story concept album, a bit like a combination of Alice Cooper and Andrew Lloyd-Webber. Now I like a good concept album as much as the next person, but only as long as the songs are first and foremost and aren't sacrificed to the concept. This is something King Diamond generally tends to avoid, but on The Eye I felt a couple of the tracks (such as The Trial (Chambre Ardente) and Two Little Girls) were compromised in order to put across the narrative of the story. This is only a minor gripe however as generally the riffs rule the roost and, compromised though it is, The Trial (Chambre Ardente) has some of the album highlights, particularly the thrashy riff that breaks out a couple of times - I would just like to have heard more of it rather than the forced perspective of the storytelling element being crowbarred in. The real major draw of The Eye for me is the absolutely sterling lead work of guitarists Andy La Rocque and Pete Blakk who are on devastating form with some brilliant soaring and searing solos that are up there with Priest and Maiden as dual lead masters.

Let's face it, King Diamond often walks the line between metal glory and cheesiness and bless him for it. His horror tales are more in keeping with Roger Corman than Rob Zombie and Hammer Studios rather than Itallian Giallo with tongue often in cheek and more than a nod to the inherent theatricality of his music. What The Eye serves up is some damn fine heavy metal songs with riffs, solos and theatrical imagery aplenty and you know what, that's kind of what a lot of metalheads grew up on, we weren't always super-intense and serious like we seem to be nowadays. Sometimes we even had fun listening to heavy metal and that is what King Diamond provides - and that's fine by me. It's not as good as Abigail or "Them", but it has plenty to recommend it all the same.

Denmark’s favourite Satanic falsetto master King Diamond & his legendary band Mercyful Fate were somewhat of an acquired taste for me over the years. Initially I really struggled with his over the top vocal theatrics however time & attention would see me slowly being converted & these days I quite enjoy the King’s bombastic pomp. Interestingly though, I tend to lean towards his solo work over the more highly praised Mercyful Fate work with albums like 1987’s “Abigail” & 1989’s “Conspiracy” sitting at the top of his back catalogue for me personally, largely contributed to by the wonderful guitar work of Swedish virtuoso & future-Death axeman Andy LaRocque. It’s a little unusual then that I don’t recall ever properly investigating anything the King has done since the 1980’s which leaves a couple of blaringly obvious gaps in my metal armory. 1990’s fifth solo album “The Eye” is probably the most significant of those releases so let’s see what it’s all about.

You certainly won’t be terribly surprised by what you hear on “The Eye” if you’ve got any sort of experience with the King’s earlier solo work as it possesses all of his famous calling cards. It’s yet another concept album that's unapologetically metal & pulls out all the stops to create that spooky horror movie atmosphere that he's so obviously obsessed with. The neoclassical element is still there although it’s probably not used quite as often as on some of the King’s work while there’s plenty of church organ included to enhance the gothic feel. The only real point of difference with “The Eye” over his earlier works is the increased progressive component as there's been a stronger focus placed on artistic creativity here in my opinion. In fact, I’d argue that “The Eye” is easily as much of a progressive metal record as it is a heavy metal one. I mean it’s comfortably as progressive as the more popular Queensryche records for example, perhaps more so.

So all of the pieces are in place for another exceedingly fun trip round a moonlit graveyard but there’s something missing versus the King’s best work in my opinion. There’s no questioning the ambition on display & the performances of the instrumentalists are all of a very high quality but I think the song-writing suffers a little bit at the hands of the storyline which is not an uncommon feeling for me when it comes to concept albums. I guess I just don’t think there are as many vocal hooks of that elite level here & it certainly doesn’t help that I find the closing track “The Curse” to be pretty flat & the weakest inclusion in the tracklisting. I’d also hazard to suggest that LaRocque’s contribution is a little less of a drawcard than usual as he seems to have gone for a more melodic approach rather than the ridiculously shredding style he’d championed in the late 1980’s. In saying that though, future Memento Mori, Mercyful Fate & Denner/Shermann drummer Snowy Shaw puts in a classy display that gives the more ambitious material a rock-solid basis to build off.

After giving “The Eye” a few good listens over the last couple of days I’m left with the impression that it’s a pretty decent King Diamond record that’s benefited greatly from the added interest associated with the more progressive approach. It’s brought me a reasonable amount of enjoyment but I can’t say that I regard it as essential listening for your average heavy metal junkie. It’s certainly worth a few listens but I don’t think it’s on the same level as records like “Abigail” or “Conspiracy”, or the first couple of Mercyful Fate releases for that matter. Perhaps I’m just not a big enough KD junkie as I actually don’t consider it to be all that far behind “Don’t Break The Oath” or “Them” in all honesty & would probably take it over the highly regarded Mercyful Fate comeback album “In The Shadows”.

For fans of Mercyful Fate, Attic & Portrait.