The tour to promote that album had its teething problems. They played in various places around Europe, including the Netherlands, Germany, Italy and their native Denmark. But having signed on for an 11 date tour of England as the support act to Manowar, they left after just one gig in St Albans after a major conflict with the headline act. It was not to be the last time such conflicts arose.
In May 1984, just 8 months after the release of their debut album, the band entered the studios again to write and record their follow up. It seemed as though it was a short time frame between albums, and indeed this album would be released less than eleven months after the debut album, but in a time when albums still made money for record companies and given the initial success of that album, it probably stands to reason that getting a second album out there made sense. It would also give their live shows double the number of songs to be able to choose from to play, and so it was that Mercyful Fate came about to release their sophomore album titled “Don’t Break the Oath”. But could it in any way equal what the band had done on that debut album?
For those who have not heard Mercyful Fate before, it tends to be the vocals of the amazing King Diamond that becomes the most difficult part of the music to comprehend, or sometimes even get past. And to get past it is an amazingly rewarding experience. One of the best pieces of advice I have heard in regard to listening to Mercyful Fate is that you have to just ‘go with it’. Don’t just immediately cast it side because the vocals scare you off. I said the same thing on the episode dedicated to the album “Melissa”. Over time the vocals will fit, you just have to ‘go with it’. Because the music itself is more than enough to make you a fan of this band and especially this album. Believe me, King Diamond and his vocal style will soon be a favourite for you. His singing on this album is a huge jump forward from the debut album as well, he isn’t just throwing those high pitched squeals and screams in at a random place because he can, they are more structured within each song on “Don’t Break the Oath”.
The opening track “A Dangerous Meeting” has a touch of speed metal riffs through the track and a terrific solo into the base of the song. It references a group of friends that visit a seance and meet an untimely end, as Diamond sings “Tonight, the circle is broken forever, seven people dead within a trance, in here nobody is sensing the rain, tonight, seven souls are reaching hell”. It is a great opening track. This is followed by "Nightmare”, the drums and bass intro before the guitar riff that follows, and jumping out at a furious pace. Diamond’s vocals are excellent on this song, moving between high register and middle ground perfectly, while Hank Shermann and Michael Denner on guitar trade riffs and solos to top off a great track. “Desecration of Souls” reigns in the speed of the music and the outlandishness of the vocals and delivers what is the most ‘normal’ heavy metal song on the album, still wrapped in the terrific guitar sonics that Shermann and Denner produce. The middle solo section of the song with these two is outstanding. “Night of the Unborn” steps the album up again, creating the heaviest atmosphere song on the album, and intensified by the guitars again, both in their melodic trade off halfway through the track before breaking into their own individual solos. This is a beauty and is backed up by Diamond with duelling vocal melodies as well.
In a cacophony of dark organ, rain, the church bell and Diamond preaching his dark message, “The Oath” bursts forth out of the speakers and drenches you in both black metal goodness and the evil vibes of the music. These complex time changes and guitar riffs combine to produce a track that takes the essence of what was begun on the debut album and transforms it here into an epic transcendence. Diamond’s vocals here are driven by the rising tide of the guitars, and both combine perfectly here to create a song of atmospheric excellence. This is arguably the album’s piece de resistance. Following this comes the pure simplified condensing of that same energy and heaviness into “Gypsy”, a short sharp retort that settles for that hard hitting 2/4 timing on the drums with a great riff and fun vocals over the top. “Welcome Princess of Hell” soars back in a way of earlier tracks, and then there is the short instrumental break of “To One Far Away”, before the album closes out with “Come to the Sabbath”, a song credited to Diamond alone, which perhaps explains the lesser appearance and combination of the guitars that makes the remaining songs on the album so terrific.
For me, this album is a far more mature outing than the first album. Most people know the first album through the songs that Metallica have fawned over and played covers of in their time. And don’t get me wrong, it is a terrific album. But this album fits together better, the songs themselves are better arranged and performed, and Diamonds vocals seem to fit in much better and don’t stick out like a sore thumb as much as they do on occasions on “Melissa”.
I was a latecomer to Mercyful Fate, despite always seeing the covers of their first two albums when I visited Utopia Records and wondering just what the band sounded like. But no one in my extended friend group had any albums of the band, and so the temptation to be the first, with the threat of it turning out to be awful, was very small. More is the pity that it took until Metallica’s “Garage Inc” album, and their cover mash up of several Mercyful Fate songs, that I decided to get out there and buy them myself. At least I got there in the long run.
So “Don’t Break the Oath” has been back in the rotation for the past couple of weeks, and I have really enjoyed it all over again. It is one of those albums that whenever I listen to it, I wonder why I don’t listen to it more often, or at least thin to drag it off the shelves more often. So, one of the premises of this podcast, to revisit old albums that I haven't heard in some time and rediscover how much I enjoy them, has definitely come to pass for this album.
Which makes it even stranger that, following this album’s release and subsequent tour, which included the US, the band basically dissolved. Apparently, Hank Shermann wanted to move in a more commercial direction, while King Diamond disagreed and left to go out and form his own eponymously titled band with Denner and bass guitarist Timi Hansen in tow. Reunions were in the stars for further down the track, but having released two such amazing albums, it seems a damn shame that it all stopped at this point, if only for a while.
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