A name that doesn’t need an introduction in the rock/metal world. Kim Bendix Petersen a.k.a King Diamond has been an inspiring name for many legendary bands including Metallica, Slayer and Cradle of Filth. So gather around boys and girls, we will go through 10 hardly picked tracks telling some of the scariest stories you will ever hear….
1. Eye of the Witch
This track is the opening track of their 5th album The Eye. The track is about an “Eye Necklace” that allows whoever finds it to see the same events the necklace itself witnessed before. Through the necklace, our journey starts in a series of historical events in each track of the album. ‘Burn’ is another highly recommended track from The Eye.
2. Heads on the Wall
From one of their best albums The Graveyard. After being set up by his boss and got locked in a sanitarium, the king’s character got mentally distorted, managed to escape and hide at a graveyard. He starts killing people who pass by. This made him believe that if he took their heads off at the graveyard, their souls will be locked inside their heads. At the end of the track King Diamond impersonates this man’s mental torture in a way that makes you feel really sad for him.
3. Halloween
Taken from the very first King Diamond album Fatal Portrait. Personally, I can’t think about Halloween without King Diamond popping up in my mind. It is a perfect song with a perfect subject to describe this band.
4. Broken Glass
Although, the album Abigail II-The Revenge is catchy as hell as, their 1987 album Abigail – that tells the first part of the story – has a bunch of awesome songs. ‘Broken Glass’ is a good example to show King Diamond’s theatrical vocal style and Andy LaRocque’s awesome rocking riffs. In this part of the story, Abigail slits Henry’s throat using a sharp necklace she found at the crypt – The one from the album The Eye – and put broken glass in Jonathan’s food. Taking her revenge from the both of them.
5. Eastmann’s Cure
I really love the melody of this song’s chorus. It’s on their sixth album The Spider’s Lullaby which is not a full concept album same as their first one Fatal Portrait. In this one, Harry who has a constant fear of spiders calls Doctor Eastman, who says that he can cure his phobia, but then he tortures him to death.
6. Abigail
Of course, this song is one of their best tracks from the self-titled album Abigail. It was kind of hard to choose one really from this album as it’s all great! Anyhow, ‘Abigail’ would be my choice of this album. By the way, do you know who is Abigail?!
7. Darkness
From the concept album The Puppet Master; the album tells a tale about a couple who went to watch a puppet show for a man and his wife in Budapest in the 1700s but later on, they found out they are murderers! The song has unique riffs; and somehow I felt it was so oriental indeed!
8. Give me your soul
‘Give Me Your Soul’ is the track from the self-title concept album that tells a story of a father who killed his little son and daughter, which escalates to further consequences. Actually, this album contains other great songs such as; ‘Mirror Mirror’, ‘Black of Night’ and ‘Is Anybody Here?’
9. Sleepless Nights
This is my choice from his Conspiracy album. It was very obvious in this song by choosing King Diamond’s wide vocal range between low and high easily. The song is also represented as a music video.
10. Welcome Home
‘Welcome Home’ is from his third album Them, in which this album and the one followed Conspiracy are telling a fictional story about little King and his mentally ill grandmother, which later, the king suffers with madness via his ill grandmother and the voices in the House of Amon. The song is also featured as a video clip and the album got re-mastered in 1997, wasn’t bad at all but will never beat the original.
In fact, it was one of hardest lists as the majority of King Diamond songs are our favorites, of course, we cannot forget songs like Egypt, The Family Ghost, Black Horsemen, The Candle, Arrival, The Invisible Guests, Omens, The Lake, Haunted, among many others.
Written by: Mena Ezzat and Hazem Mahani of I Wanna Rock Online Show
Edited by: Ahmad Mostafa and NJ Bakr
