Back in 1987, fans of the black metal band Mercyful Fate had to
\nbe drooling when
\nThe Beginning<\/i> was released. The Danish band, led by King
\nDiamond, had imploded after two ground-breaking (not to mention
\neardrum-shattering) releases, leaving many to wonder just what had
\nhappened. Anything new from the band – even if it was just a matter
\nof cleaning out closets – would have been treated like a sacred
\ntext.<\/p>\n
\nThe Beginning<\/i> is indeed a closet-cleaner release – but that
\ndoesn’t make this a bad album. Taking the entire
\nMercyful Fate<\/i> EP (long out of print, even in 1987) and
\nadding on some cuts recorded live for radio and one studio outtake,
\nand you have the third Mercyful Fate album… and a little
\nmore.<\/p>\n
The four tracks from the original EP are interesting to listen
\nto in that there are not a lot of effects piled on to Diamond’s
\nvocals. This was done out of time limitations, but it shows off a
\nrawer side to Mercyful Fate that may have surprised some people.
\n(It also showed a rawer side to their satanic leanings – not
\nsofter, but not quite as graphic as they’d become on albums such as<\/p>\n
Don’t Break The Oath<\/i>.)<\/p>\n
Of these tracks, two stand out as being quite good. “Doomed By
\nThe Living Dead” is a track which demonstrates Diamond’s vocal
\nprowess up-front, in your face. (He also does this, albeit to a
\nlesser extent, on “Devil Eyes”.) The other track, “Nuns Have No
\nFun,” is legendary among Mercyful Fate fans – and is an interesting
\nlisten, even if you don’t necessarily agree with the imagery that
\nMercyful Fate promoted. (It’s intriguing that, in the liner notes,
\nthey didn’t reproduce the cover of the original EP – that kind of
\nmade the song “Nuns Have No Fun” seem tame. You can, of course,
\nfind the original artwork online at Mercyful Fate fan pages.)<\/p>\n
The remainder of
\nThe Beginning<\/i> is mostly comprised of tracks recorded for the
\nBBC. The sole exception, “Black Masses,” is a track that didn’t
\nmake the cut for
\nMelissa<\/i>, the band’s first full-length outing. Why it wasn’t
\nincluded on the album I don’t know; it’s just as good as anything
\nthat was on
\nMelissa<\/i>. (The song was eventually released as the b-side to
\nthe “Black Funeral” single.)<\/p>\n
I can’t say that the “live” versions of tracks such as “Curse Of
\nThe Pharoahs” or “Satan’s Fall” add much to the original studio
\nversions. If anything, they prove that Mercyful Fate was capable of
\nre-creating the power of these songs in a live setting, but that’s
\nreally about it. These particular tracks aren’t bad in any sense of
\nthe word, but they’re really geared toward the diehard Mercyful
\nFate fans.<\/p>\n
\nThe Beginning<\/i> is interesting in that it captures the early
\ndays of a band who were one of the first to actively perform black
\nmetal and who enjoyed a relatively large following for their style
\nof music. (I seem to recall reading that
\nDon’t Break The Oath<\/i> nearly cracked the Billboard 200 – an
\namazing feat for an album that heavy at that time.) Sure, this is
\none that the diehard Fate freaks swarm over, but even for the
\ncasual listener, it’s not a bad way to spend 40 minutes or so.<\/p>\n
In time, of course, Mercyful Fate would re-unite, and the dreams
\nof new material from the band would come true for everyone. But
\neven if the band had chosen to end it with
\nThe Beginning<\/i>, it would have been understandable – and they
\nwould have, at least, left an enjoyable “for-the-fans” release.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25611,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[6343],"rating":[5612],"class_list":["post-36817","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-mercyful-fate","rating-rating-b-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36817","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36817"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36817\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25611"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36817"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36817"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=36817"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=36817"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}