King Diamond – “The Graveyard”
This release is another episode in the long history of KING D. tradition of telling a story in each release. If you heard the “Spiders Lullaby”, then this continues the “new and polished” sound. (Which I hate!) KING D., the band, doesn’t really sound evil like in the old days. (The better days.) In many ways the direction of the band is more crystalline and has the more straight forward heavy metal sound. You can tell they put a lot of work into this album. As always, Andy La R. guitar work simply shines on this undertaking. At times the sharp melodies and solos are pretty damn impressive. The voice isn’t (what I would call) as schizophrenic as in the past. Despite the fact that the subject matter is “dark”, the truth is that this album is to “nice” sounding for it to be “dark”. It’s almost as if the old VAN HALEN tried to sound evil. This is just too musical, too good to be “evil”. The overall sound is that of a heavy metal band that has come of age. Truly professionally sounding stuff. (That doesn’t make it better!) I still have to mention again that it’s the guitar work that makes this band really awesome.