JoeLumb's Album Review King Diamond's "Fatal Portrait" (1986)

 For years I have heard stories about King Diamond and alot of it was negative,mainly because he is a devil worshipper. However when he was fronting Mercyful Fate years before releasing albums like "Melissa" (1983) and "Don't Break The Oath" (1984) the theme was all about The Occult and Satan etc etc they were in that Black Metal Category and many critics claim that they're the originators of Black Metal. But when he started his own solo band named "King Diamond" his concepts are mainly horror themed stuff. King Diamond was more into shock rock,straight up heavy metal with bits of speed added on. 

King Diamond was formed in his home country of Copenhagen,Denmark in 1985 and joining him was his fellow Mercyful Fate members Guitarist Michael Denner and Bassist Timi Hansen after King had a falling out with another Mercyful Fate Guitarist in Hank Shermann and I don't know who was the drummer for Mercyful Fate at the time,but that's nothing to worry about. So King,Timi and Michael turned to future Motorhead and Scorpions drummer Mikkey Dee and guitarist Andy LaRocque. After the formation they started working on their first album at Soundtrack Studios in Copenhagen. 

From July to August of 1985 they have written and recorded what would be their debut release "Fatal Portrait" Before hand King Diamond released his first ever single "No Presents for Christmas" on Christmas Day of 1985 what a wild way to celebrate Christmas folks. 

"Fatal Portrait" was released on March 14,1986 less than two weeks after Metallica released their third disc "Master of Puppets" (Another Album Review for another time) though it didn't chart on any album charts the record sold 100,000 units in North American alone. See Five out of the Nine songs form a short story where a Narrator sees a face in a burning candle,the face speaks one word to the Narrator "Jonah",then he finds an old book,speaks a rhyme and frees a spirit from the candle. The spirit is a little girl named Molly and she tells him her story that happened 7 years prior. Miss Jane kept her 4 year old daughter Molly locked in the attic until the day she died. Miss Jane painted a portrait of Molly and kept it above her fireplace so that Molly would become immortal,however Molly made the portrait speak to her mother Jane making sure she knew Molly's pain. Miss Jane spoke a rhyme and burned the portrait,the free spirit of Molly returned to haint Jane to the point of insanity. Obviously after watching Youtuber Ruthless Metal's re-telling of Fatal Portrait you can bet Miss Jane had it coming in the end. If you're wondering which songs was it that formed the short story of "Fatal Portrait"? Well it's The Candle,The Jonah,The Portrait,Dressed in White and Haunted you can tell King Diamond wrote a large majority of the album with a few exceptions like Haunted,Charon and Halloween. 

I love the storytelling of King Diamond on this album,but did not care for any of the songs other than "Halloween" and sadly it's NOT ranked in my favorite albums of 1986. King Diamond would go on to release multiple concept albums shortly after "Fatal Portrait" however this and 1995's "Spider's Lullaby" are the only two King Diamond albums that are not whole concept albums.

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