Ghost - "Opus Eponymous" CD Review (Metal Blade)

STREAM: Ghost - "Ritual" (click-through to sterogum.com)

Sweden’s Ghost take an interesting and engaging twist on the metal genre as the band plays psychedelic alt-rock with clean vocals and harmonies, memorable anthemic melodies and heavily Satanic lyrics. The band released their US debut album Opus Eponymous earlier this year through Rise Above/Metal Blade. This disc was released in Europe last year and Fenriz of Darkthrone listed this album as one of his favorite releases from 2010 – “astounding album but is it heavy metal occultism or death-rock? who cares”.

The music and philosophies of Ghost specifically target "individuals who have a void in their life perhaps caused by some form of emotional trauma or upset" (research suggests these are most likely adolescents); this dearth can then be alluringly filled by Ghost's music and philosophies, "so that in time the easily manipulated will come to share the views and goals of the Coven's ministry and can prepare their own plans for the downfall of humanity."

"Our mission is not as much about conversion as it is about underlining which path you all have chosen to go, and where it will ultimately lead you," declared Ghost in a rare communiqué.

The disc’s nine tracks run just under 35 minutes and the catchy, “death rock” sensibilities of the band make this a disc that could have caught on with a wider audience if not for the blasphemous lyrics. With odes to Satan, a spoken word bastardized version of The Lords Prayer and tales of human sacrifice, Ghost’s lyrical content comes close to rivaling Mercyful Fate and Impaled Nazarene. The band adds to the overall feeling of a satanic ritual in their live show as the six (unnamed) members of Ghost play behind masks and robes and the lead singer dresses as a black pope.



If you can get past the overt Satanism, Ghost has impressive musical chops and Opus Eponymous is a diverse and tightly executed disc. Rounding out the melodic death rock, the disc opens and closes with a pair of instrumentals. The opening track, “Deus Culpa”, adds to the death rock comparisons and is a minute and a half piece held together by a mournful church organ. The final track, “Genesis”, is an aggressive, almost art-rock instrumental.

Ghost’s only scheduled US appearance is at Maryland Deathfest on May 29th.

Links:
Ghost

King Diamond Recovering from Triple Bypass Surgery (Metal Blade)

King Diamond's wife, Livia, made the following post on the official King Diamond website:

"Let me catch you all up on the past couple of weeks' happenings, because it affects many things.

On Monday the 29th of November, King had to be transported to the nearby hospital by ambulance. After several different tests were done and the EKG machine showing abnormalities, the doctors recommended that he get a cardiac catheterization.

Cardiac catheterization is a procedure where the doctors lead a very thin tube up from the leg and into the heart, where it injects dye into the bloodstream. Then a camera at the end of the tube takes many pictures of the heart's arteries, looking for blockages. After this was done, they determined that King had several heart attacks, and three of his heart's arteries were the cause: one was completely blocked, the second was 90% blocked, and the third was 65% blocked.

The only solution to this was an open heart triple bypass surgery.

If you are interested in the details of how this surgery is performed, please look it up online. I will only touch on the basics. The sternum (breastbone) is cut in half and pulled apart, to expose the heart. Veins are harvested from other places of the body, in King's case it was his left leg and chest wall. The person is then hooked up to a machine that practically does the job of the heart, circulating and oxygenating the blood. The heart is then stopped, and the lungs collapse (the lungs stop working since the blood is being oxygenated by the machine). The surgeon then sews the harvested veins in place, bypassing the found blockages. Once the surgery is done, the surgeon moves the ribs and breastbone back into place and wires it together. The chest is closed as well. They use an electric pulse to start the heart and a breathing machine is lead into the lungs to restart breathing. King's surgery took approximately 7 hours.

Everything went well, and King was taken to ICU for recovery. He was walking and eating solid food already 2 days after the operation, and he was the first one in the history of the hospital who walked on his own power from the ICU to normal care. 10 days after the ambulance took him to the emergency room, he is at home and is recovering well. It will be a few months before he feels completely normal and is without pain.

He would like to mention here that he's eternally grateful for the wonderful staff at Centennial Medical Center who took care of him. Dr. Kourlis, Dr. Kamili, Dr. Alang, Nurse Christie and Nurse Thomas among many others made sure that he got the best care and attention he could ever have hoped for. They were always very nice to me too, letting me stay overnight in the ICU after visiting hours were over.

In light of this, he will be taking a break from music and the music business altogether until further notice. He very much wants to write new music, finish the DVDs, and go on tour, but for now, all those things are in the distant future and he's not thinking about them.

Please understand that the King Diamond band is not stopping, disbanding or anything of the sort. King's health is first priority, and when everything is going good with him, the music will resume.

Thank you all very much for reading this and STAY HEAVY,
Livia"

Links:
King Diamond

King Diamond Issues Remastered Version of 1998's Voodo CD (Metal Blade)

Continuing to focus on some of the reissues that came out toward the end of last year, Metal Blade released a remastered version of King Diamond's 1998 concept album Voodoo last November. (Note: a remastered version of House of God was released at the same time)

This disc was remastered by long-time King Diamond guitarist Andy LaRocque and he brings out a lot more of the details and horror movie effects than I remember hearing on the original recording. In addition to bringing out the details, there is a lot more clarity and bottom-end which makes this new reissue perfect for late night headphone listening.

Voodoo tells the story of the Lafayettes, David, Sarah (who is pregnant) and Grandpa. In the early 1930s, they move into an old colonial house on the Mississippi River which happens to have been built next to a voodoo graveyard.

"Unknown to the Lafayettes, the colonial house's servant, Salem, is involved in voodoo. Salem partakes in voodoo rituals at the graveyard, along with Doctor le Croix, a voodoo sorcerer, Madame Sarita, and Lula Chevalier, a girl who is never seen. The Lafayettes hear the voodoo drums from the ceremonies in the graveyard. They call a secret meeting with Salem to discuss what should be done. The Lafayettes decide to destroy the voodoo burial ground. Salem does not want this to happen, so he sneaks out at midnight to talk to Doctor le Croix. Le Croix gives Salem money to buy some goofer dust, and tells him that the Lafayettes must all die." -- Wikipeida

Overall, this disc should strike a positive chord with long-time King Diamond fans. Musically and lyrically, this isn't that far removed from what Alice Cooper was doing in the early/mid 70s so this disc has the potential to find a wider audience with fans of Alice Cooper and other horror rock artists.

King Diamond has also issued a bonus live video of the title track "Voodoo" (which features a guest appearance from "Dimebag" Darrell on the studio version) as a free download to purchasers of the new reissue.

Here is the YouTube version of the video:



Links:
King Diamond

King Diamond: Metal Blade to Reissue 'The Spider's Lullabye' and 'The Graveyard' Next Month

King Diamond guitarist Andy LaRocque has remastered King Diamond's mid-90's albums The Spider's Lullabye and The Graveyard which are set to be released on October 13th. Each album will include bonus material that purchasers will be able to obtain digitally. Both The Spider's Lullabye and The Graveyard will include live “bootleg” versions (with video footage) of the following songs: 'The Spider's Lullabye' (from the album of the same name) and ‘Trick Or Treat' and 'Up From The Grave' from The Graveyard.

“Andy LaRocque re-mastered both records and you can really hear more details and sounds that I remember recording but didn't come through in the original mastering. The records have much more bottom end this time around. There's even more details and clarity than the original version and you'll hear things you've never heard before in both releases. Andy did a great job re-mastering and improving these albums above and beyond my expectations. The artwork has also been completely redone for Spiders and Graveyard and is just amazing. I did not expect them to come out this good and am just completely thrilled with the result.

We originally were going to include bonus footage on the albums as a CD-ROM, but the sound and video quality was going to suffer tremendously and that is just unacceptable. Instead, the bonus footage is going to be available for download to those who purchase the albums. The video downloads will be available in multiple formats so everyone can see them."
-King Diamond

Links:
King Diamond's Website

Mercyful Fate Release New Versions of 1983's "Evil" and "Curse Of The Pharaohs"

Mercyful Fate (who are currently 'hibernating') got back together last year to re-record "Evil" and "Curse of the Pharaohs" for Guitar Hero: Metallica because the original masters were lost. The songs will be available to purchase digitally from iTunes on July 14th and a special edition vinyl picture disc single will be available on September 1st.

King Diamond comments: “It was a lot of fun to get a chance to re-record "Evil" and "Curse of the Pharaohs" from our 1983 "Melissa" album. It was cool to go into the studio and try to figure out all the various harmony vocals and see if I could still do them. The other guys had a lot of fun with this project too, and the whole thing turned out much better than we could have hoped for. Everyone nailed their performances and Hank's solos were even slightly improved. Everything is right where it should be and with a much better sound! The “feel” was there and all of the guys - Hank, Denner, Timi and Bjarne are all naturals. The versions that will be up on iTunes were mastered by Andy LaRocque and even with a 2009 sound, there's no doubt that these songs were recorded by Mercyful Fate!”

Links:
King Dianond's MySpace Profile