CD Odyssey Disc 1166: King Diamond

Sometimes you gotta know when to cut your losses. This next review is me doing exactly that.

Disc 1166 is… The Graveyard

Artist: King Diamond

Year of Release: 1996

What’s up with the Cover? Looks like King Diamond and Andy LaRocque went out one evening to do some amateur photography with their trusty Snap-O-Matic. I don’t know if a Snap-O-Matic is even a thing, but it seems like that would be the name of any camera that takes photos this bad.

How I Came To Know It: I did a deep dive through the entire King Diamond discography a little over a year ago. This was one of the ones I liked.

How It Stacks Up:  I currently have seven King Diamond albums, which I have come to learn is way too many. Of those seven, I rank “The Graveyard” 4^th. And since – spoiler alert – this is the last King Diamond album I plan to review, here’s the full list:

1. “The Eye”: 4 stars (reviewed at Disc 1095)
2. The Graveyard: 3 stars (reviewed right here)
3. Abigail: 3 stars (reviewed at Disc 1093)
4. Fatal Portrait:  2 stars (not reviewed because…I’m done)
5. Them: 2 stars (not reviewed because…enough)
6. The Spider’s Lullabye: 2 stars (reviewed at Disc 1104)
7. Abigail II: 2 stars (reviewed at Disc 1124)
8. Conspiracy: 1 star (reviewed at Disc 1152)

You read that correctly. I didn’t review “Fatal Portrait” and “Them” and I’m not going to. I’m done with you, King Diamond, and your entire discography.

Ratings: 3 stars

In popular culture, when a father is trying to cure a son of his smoking habit he makes the kid sit in the bathroom and smoke cigarette after cigarette. Eventually the kid is retching into the toilet trying to cough his tortured lungs into the sewers, but he’s cured.

I’m like that kid, except I had a King Diamond problem. Over the course of a few months I bought eight King Diamond albums – five of them in a single boxed set. Finally, the CD Odyssey gods stepped in to cure me by force feeding me what I thought I wanted. Over the past 73 albums, I’ve rolled King Diamond six times. At first this was a novelty, and then it was a fun coincidence. Around album three or four it became an endurance test that I was eager to master. But now, confronted with album #6 and only three quarters of the way through the experience, my ears are starting to develop a gag reflex. I am done with King Diamond.

Although it no longer matters, “The Graveyard” is one of his better albums. It has some scorching guitar riffs from Andy Larocque and some soaring melodies. Even King’s voice, which can screech to the point of incoherence, is restrained by his standards. Maybe the ten years he’d spent contorting his vocals finally took their toll, but the end result was a good thing.

And yet…I could care less. I am done with his brand of theatre and bombast. I was initially drawn to King Diamond because of Larocque’s scorching guitar licks – and I still love those – and I was entertained by the crazy and inventive stories King would weave around those licks. I love a good theme and these records were the ultimate in concept albums.

“The Graveyard” is no exception. And while I have mostly lost interest, let’s recap it for old time’s sake. Here we have a man locked up in an insane asylum but who murders his nurse and escapes. He then kidnaps a man’s daughter, buries her in a grave and forces him to guess which grave she is in. When the man succeeds, the inmate plans to murder him anyway. However, a pane of glass suddenly falls from a crypt window and decapitates the inmate. The little girl then takes the inmate’s head and puts it in her backpack. The End.

In King Diamond’s world, if you are killed and your head is severed in a graveyard your soul is trapped forever in your head. I suppose getting taken home by the little girl could be seen as a silver lining, but I imagine an epilogue where the head spends the next few months decomposing while being forced to play a starring role in a seven year old’s tea party. I mean, at least until mom comes in with some sandwiches and cookies and sees it oozing all over the carpet. “Lucy…I’ve told you a hundred times. If you’re going to play with that head put a towel down first!” Hmmm…I think I have the makings of “The Graveyard II: Tea Time!” But I digress…

As King Diamond stories go, this is far from the weirdest, and there are some pretty cool songs as well but I just don’t give a crap anymore. All those concepts have worn me out. I love a good story, but somehow I forgot how much I hate musicals, and King Diamond albums are basically heavy metal musicals. They belong off Broadway, with lots of crazy costumes and a troupe of Cirque de Soleil dancers flipping around and contorting themselves.

If you count “Abigail II” (which I have already given away) I’ve got over 5 hours of King Diamond music and I’ve heard it all at least three times now. That’s 15 hours of my life I’ll never get back. I’m cutting my losses. These might be meticulously rendered metal nightmares, but it is time someone else dreamed them. I’m moving on and getting rid of the entire collection. If I want creative songs about crazies and axe murderers I’ve got plenty of Alice Cooper and Handsome Family records to get my fix.

Best tracks: I’m sure there are a few but…whatever.