Review by Sonny for King Diamond - The Eye (1990)

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.