Melissa Is Still With Us: A Classic Turns 40

[Cover artwork by Thomas Holm]

Many, many moons ago, on a notably cold night in late October, two teenage friends who’d recently had a falling out decided to bury the hatchet by hitting a haunted house deep in the heartland together. The festering feud was over a girl, as one might expect, and it nearly ended an otherwise ironclad friendship.

The two friends chose a haunted house about an hour away—some sort of cursed hayride out in the country that concluded inside “a nightmare barn filled with atrocities so terrifying, the county nearly shut it down out of concern for the health and safety of the general public.” Back in the mid-to-late ‘80s, people who ran backwoods haunted houses often ignored all forms of caution, reputedly sending out muzzled dobermans into haunted forests, and frequently offering full refunds to patrons steely enough to make it to the exit without asking for help. What a blessed time to be alive.

Having spent a significant portion of their friendship basking in the glory of heavy metal’s ever increasing authority, it was that effortlessly familiar path that helped mend fences as the two adventurers shared a car ride out to the quiet, eerie countryside. Again, it was late October, with Halloween in full sight, so King Diamond was the chosen soundtrack for the journey, saturating the cold night air with a devilish spirit as the howling specter of Melissa pealed from the windows of a beater car choking down five bucks worth of low-grade unleaded.

“Come, come! Into my coven! And become! Lucifer’s chiiiild,” wailed the two comrades in unison, slowly yielding to the magnificent strength of Melissa. Sure, a 10/10 record like Don’t Break the Oath does a magnificent job of conjuring its diabolical mood on the curled tendrils of Hell’s smoke, but it also feels more like a solitary venture—something to be experienced alone in the full hush of darkness. By contrast, Melissa is an abyss-rocker’s glorious nightmare come true, stoking unruly fires with a crude fury held over from the band’s Brats and Black Rose days. King’s voice in 1983 was as fiendish and intense as a pit fiend mocking a priest, making a raw gutter such as “At the Sound of the Demon Bell” the perfect companion for speeding down neglected back roads with the stereo cranked to ear-splitting levels.

The two hellions barreled into the night, bonded once again by a mutual appreciation for grim metal and loosing youthful mischief into the hours of darkness, which is precisely what unraveled once they reached their haunted destination. Those particular details are best left for another time, though, or perhaps never again, seeing as how one of the individuals—yours truly—remains a touch remorseful for the hellabaloo we heaved onto the poor souls attempting to scare two creatures possessed by Melissa’s dark force. Suffice to say, wickedness won the night, and much of that mood was fueled by the ghoulish glow of this, Mercyful Fate’s very finest hour.

On October 30th, 2023, Melissa will turn 40. Does that mean the record hopes to spend the day edging the driveway, grilling, and dropping endless unbidden dad jokes to all the albums it helped sire? Nope. Every bit of the vital energy and enveloping impishness it harnessed four decades ago is still present in spades, just waiting to be loosed into the night with the intent of possessing all within earshot. So, yes, by all means, crank Melissa to brain-bursting levels, fully embrace your inner ghoul, and get ready to…

Rise! Rise! Rise! It’s Halloweeeeeen!!

[CAPTAIN]

 

EVIL

 

Sure, I like plenty of albums that dick around with long intros and fancy scene-setting but that is not why we are here today, friends, because today we are here for riffs. Melissa’s opening move is pretty succinct in its mission: Evil. And to get us there, to dance their evil dance, the dandy Danes serve up a masterclass in movement. In a move that summons the spirit of “Victim of Changes,” the guitars offer a feint of triplets before bursting into a straight four, and yet the opening gallop of the song is hungry, almost leaping over itself into King’s first impeccable line: “I was born on the cemetery / Under the sign of the mooooooon.” The song is nearly five minutes, but King’s vocals are parsimonious rather than predominant, jumping in with eerily unforgettable lyrics but then stepping back to let the band illustrate the story.

“Evil” is stuffed with immaculate riffs, but the best part is how the band plays within and around them, with Kim Ruzz’s drums shifting smoothly between straightforward rhythms with subtle flair (hitting the ride hard during the solo section, for example, or working with Timi Grabber’s bass to goose the band even harder through the bridge). So yes, the band moves in mystical unison, but let’s not pretend this is anything but the Shermann and Denner show. Shermann (who you might forgive for taking an easy victory lap after writing the whole goddamned album) and Denner fire off in every direction across the opener, riffing in a rollicking rock and roll lockstep one minute and then spiraling off in a needling duet-lead the next, all of it before closing things out with a pair of solos that make palpable the lust and feral madness of the song. Absolute heavy metal perfection. [DAN OBSTKRIEG]

CURSE OF THE PHARAOHS

By listening to this song, you will, in fact, be cursed; cursed with an earworm of a chorus that stands as one of the most infectious of the entire King Diamond / Mercyful Fate catalogue. Before your first encounter with it, however, you will be greeted with a cock-rock riff dripping with evil promise that drops into a dark horse gallop bringing a sense of doom and foreboding.

Guitars wail like spirits of the dead, and King comes in with his haunted middle tone. It’s when that first “heyeeeeaaaahh” hits that you know it’s really about to get good. The emphasis he puts on certain words followed by the layered high note that kicks in at the end of the word “pharaohs” is just so damn good. Promptly following the first chorus is an absolutely killer lead that springs up again between the two lines of the next verse like a mummy flung from the ground after an air pocket bursts under a pyramid.

“Curse of the Pharaohs” encapsulates everything Mercyful Fate is supposed to be: hooky riffs, triumphant rhythms, leads crawling all over the place like scarabs on a corpse, and the inimitable power of King Diamond’s voice soaring over the top to make it all feel like you’re taking part in a cult offering. [SPENCER HOTZ]

INTO THE COVEN

First of all, dear reader, I must commend you for living long enough to arrive here at this Hallow’s Eve season in the year five thousand, seven hundred and eighty-four. The world is a cold and dangerous place full of unseen horrors and vicious evils. Thus, this moment has been a long time coming and should see the ushering in of our Lord, his evilness, King Diamond’s much awaited new album(s) as either a solo artist or as this wonderful coven of miscreants known as Mercyful Fate, yet merciful they are not.

Come with me, dear reader, on a journey Into the Coven (so to speak). You must first know that this track, more than a lovely song for fans and loyalists, has long upset the weak majority of soft-eared humans. ‘Twas the Roman Calendar year known as one thousand, nine hundred and eighty-five (57845-5746) that the Parents Music Resource Center produced a Filthy Fifteen. That, of course, was not as holy as the beloved Devil’s Dozen created here at Last Rites but rather a list of fifteen songs sure to bring parents together yelling for censorship to save their precious children from the devil. 

A plot twist, my friends, it didn’t work! After an innocuous acoustic intro with classical, electric lead lines over it we the children are beckoned by Blackmore-esque riffs and Kingly lyrics into the cabin to become the child of His very Lordship; Satan. Hank Shermann and Michael Denner deftly trade riffs as spells bounce off walls and flames rise from floors. Ruzz and Grabber (RIP) drive the rhythmic gyrations and gesticulations of the congregation forward towards the fire of the High Priestess, her moist body glistening in the firelight.

A harmonized vocal bridge provides a rest for the newly formed congregation to slither forward as guitar solos ring out. The High Priestess steps forward to embrace the children of the night and initiate them into the Coven. More solos buzz as she and His Lordship Satan send sparks and flames ripping throughout the cabin. As the children begin to seize with spasmodic changes the original riff reappears to consecrate this night as Holy. Welcome, Lucifer’s Child. You have now earned the protection of The Coven. [SIR WILLIAM OF UR-SAG]

AT THE SOUND OF THE DEMON BELL

On an album full of tunes that raised the bar for how purely evil heavy metal could sound in the first half of the 1980s, “At the Sound of the Demon Bell” makes a really strong case for casting the darkest and most damning spell of all, but its first spell is that of trickery. Rather than setting a haunting stage à la “The Oath,” this song’s beginning is rather unassuming, full of rockin’ riffs and fun solos. No vocal incantations from King happen until right at the 40-second mark, when the song makes an abrupt shift, and…

HALLOWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEN!!!

“But Halloween is a holiday of costumes and candy and drunk adults, not pure evil,” you will say, and sure, that’s what it is to us. But flip your perspective for a second. Put yourself in the mind of the most religiously fearful and paranoid person you’ve known in your life; the type that thought Halloween would send children to damnation at the hands of Sssaaaaaayt’nists; the crazy Helen Lovejoy type that got Halloween canceled at the local elementary school because they just knew someone must think of the children. This is the Halloween of those fears. It is the day of Satanic ritual and corruption and demonic possession and, most importantly, the conjuring of Lucifer himself (with some help from Beelzebub and Astaroth, of course). If you want King Diamond having fun with the holiday, get some “Halloween” from Fatal Portrait in your head. This track means very mean business.

Both musically and thematically, of course. Instrumentally, “At the Sound of the Demon Bell” is one of the more complex, prog-constructed tracks on Melissa, shifting from that rocking beginning to thoroughly devilish sections and back to a type of riff dance/celebration (of you know what), all with Denner and Shermann trading off killer solos throughout. Vocally, this is one of the wildest and most irresistible performances of King’s career. He shifts from that falsetto scream to his mid-range wail to deeper, charismatic bellows and everything in between. His most magical passage might come as the answer to singing “RISE… RISE… RISE…” (to you know who), when a series of “Ohhhhhs and oooooohs” seem to come not from one person, but from a choir of crazed conjurers. The ultimate kicker is in how his famed falsetto appears almost out of blackness, nowhere at the beginning of these passages and clearly audible by the end, as if the voice of Satan himself is clawing out of the darkness to gain a foothold in the corporeal plane of man.

So go ahead and think this song is just about trick or treating your way around the cul-de-sac. Whatever makes you feel safe tomorrow. [ZACH DUVALL]

BLACK FUNERAL

In truth, I was a little intimidated when I first sat down and listened to Melissa. There’s a lot—visually and musically—to unpack. And when you’re doing that unpacking a bajillion years removed from the release date, you feel a bit handicapped and context-starved. But there’s also some excitement and perspective that goes with that sort of musical tourism. Perhaps more than the album’s other six tracks, “Black Funeral” had that hook my untrained ears were looking for at the time.

I have always felt enamored with and perplexed and engaged by “Black Funeral.” Sandwiched, as it were, between the far less straightforward “At the Sound of the Demon Bell” and “Satan’s Fall,” Melissa’s fifth (and first b-side) track is almost oddly orthodox. Almost, of course, because this is still a Mercyful Fate song and orthodox is a relative term.

What struck me most about “Black Funeral” was its playfulness—not something you’d otherwise expect from a single that clocks in at 2:49. And even now, ears slightly more trained, the song hasn’t lost that sort of fresh impact it had many years ago, due in part to that playfulness. Shermann and Denner were, of course, masters at finding ways to make even the briefest of songs feel adventurous, and they certainly put on a class here.

No mention of “Black Funeral” could go without a praise, or two, or three, of the vocal performance. King’s sinister presence on this song in particular felt at first listen like a complete validation of the aforementioned intimidation. The most striking part about the performance for me at the time was that it was not an unhinged sort of sinister presence but instead a more purposeful, controlled evil. And that felt exciting. [CHRIS C]

SATAN’S FALL

I’m going to go ahead and put my eternal soul at stake here and say that the B-side of Melissa is the most sinister chunk of Mercyful Fate ever pressed to record. Contrasting the shorter, more concise evil that precedes it on “Black Funeral,” “Satan’s Fall” is a sprawling epic–Fate’s take on the likes of “Hallowed Be Thy Name” or “Rime Of The Ancient Mariner.”

The irony of the song title is exposed as the song unveils. Following the theatrical descriptions of an inverted ritual, Lucifer’s fall from heaven is as much about ascending as it is descending on its way seeing the world through enlightened eyes (“Is it Satan’s fall? No! It’s Satan’s call!”). The fall itself only occupies the first two and a half minutes of the twelve and a half minute opus. King’s harrowing cries of “Home! Come home!” sound like they’re being cast from the gates and off a cliff, falling from the grace of Jehovah and into the demonic cackling of The Adversary. There’s little repetition as the tune rises from the ashes, building and becoming more and more powerful as Shermann’s riffing prowess sets anchors for the ascension, trading leads with Denner like licking flames of hell until it concludes, finally circling back to the intro riff at the tail end like an anaconda-sized ouroboros.

In the eyes of the pious, “Satan’s Fall” is truly a terrifying descent. In the eyes of the Light Bearer, it’s a journey of self-discovery, self-empowerment, and enlightenment adorned with Fate’s blasphemous theatrics that would make LeVey water at the mouth. The process is a journey, and oft a tumultuous one, but isn’t it better to be free? “Use your demon eyes, uncover the disguise! Time is out, yeah I don’t need your God! On the law of Satan, pray and obey it forever!” [RYAN TYSINGER]

MELISSA

I was already feeling old by the time I learned to love King Diamond and Mercyful Fate. Part of that is down to the simple truth that I am something of a numbskull. Even so, I do deserve a bit of a break, because the King’s music scared the living shit out of me when I was younger. Kiss, Mötley Crüe, and of course, Black Sabbath all got brought up in my Sunday school classes, but even they just kind of rubbed up against the Devil’s whiskers, whereas King Diamond made songs like “Melissa” with lyrics like, “I’m kneeling in front of the altar / Satan’s cross upon the wall.” The music itself is scary in its way, like bonfire party music for ghouls but, yeah, it’s those lyrics, delivered in King’s inimitable way, that made listening feel like every word in your ear inched you that much closer to Hell.

So, no, I couldn’t handle it as a young ’un, and I used King’s vocals as an excuse to stay away for too long. Ironically, as great as the lyrics and their (extended) story are, and even as great as King’s delivery of them gets, “Melissa” is mainly a showcase for the mighty Michael Denner, whose solos comprise nearly half of the song. In the context of a relatively slow-paced lament of the darling Melissa’s demise at the hands of a witch-burning priest, Denner’s leads glow like the heart of the fire, especially during the song’s blistering denouement; just one more of the countless wonderful ways that Melissa and Mercyful Fate portend so much of the amazing extreme metal we love today. [LONE WATIE]

BLACK MASSES

Not technically part of Melissa, per se, “Black Masses” was relegated to the b-side of the “Black Funeral” 7″ single, and our reasons for including it here are two-fold. One, it’s an opportunity to talk more about Mercyful Fate, which is always a good thing. And two, it rocks like hell (almost literally, I suppose, given the band’s usual subject matter).

Coming of age in the 80s, I remember well the “Satanic Panic” and the “Filthy Fifteen,” remember the fear and controversy surrounding anything labeled heavy metal, and I remember how genuinely scary some of it seemed to a kid just barely in his teens by the end of that Golden Age Of Metal. I knew the allegations against the likes of Iron Maiden were false and folly, and those against Judas Priest seemed to be the same, but above all the others, the one band that seemed truly dangerous was Mercyful Fate, and by extension, although more horror-focused than Satanic, King Diamond solo. The riffs were darker, heavier, and the lyrical content even more so, even though I’ll admit I didn’t spend as much time analyzing that aspect until much later.

Despite that someone clearly thought it was lesser than the rest, at least when the initial album was sequenced, “Black Masses” is not at all lesser, leaving it now to be something of an underrated gem in the band’s widely celebrated canon. It certainly ticks all the boxes that make classic Mercyful Fate one of the all-time greats — a slate of killer Shermann / Denner riffs and solos and a soaring melodic chorus, their guitars entwined through all of those pre-thrash NWOBHM-gone-black turns; loud in the mix throughout, Hansen’s bass especially pops out during that chorus, plucking some quick higher-register fills between King’s instantly hooky repetitions of the song title, and Ruzz’s drums push the whole thing with an almost-swinging swagger.

But for all the greatness contained in all of that, it’s still King’s show, and here he’s as good as ever and always, jumping across octaves, somehow making a tale of infanticidal dark ritual into a singalong event. That chorus worms its way inside your brain, and somehow, you find yourself gleefully shouting along. “Black maa-aass-eessss…  killin’ babies! Black masses!” [ANDREW EDMUNDS]