This week I listened to Melissa by Mercyful Fate. Much like when I listened to Venom's Black Metal this is another classic metal album that escaped me in my metal days. While an album from the same era of metal, Melissa is a very different album. One of the most notable things from the album are the vocals. King Diamond switches between singing in a pretty standard vocal style for this kind of metal to singing soaring high notes. This is a positive and a negative, for when he is just using that high range for one note it sounds amazing! But when he is using that range for an extended period of time, it can sometimes sound a little thin and whiny. It doesn't happen extremely often, but it happens enough that it detracts from the album a bit. The riffs on this album rule. They are still kind of in that older style of metal but they innovate enough to where they sound very fresh. Another hallmark of this album is the structure of the songs. This seems to be the start of songs in metal having parts that just sound wildly different from each other. The obvious example of this is in what is sort of the centerpiece of the album, "Satan's Fall". That song has so many sections that sound very different to each other, creating great contrast within the song itself. I can see how this album would go on to influence thrash and death metal bands, as that is something common place in those styles. One of my favorite parts of this album are the guitar solos. The guitars overall have such a great tone, but when they solo those guitars sing! The solos themselves are fantastic sounding, very intricate and well put together. The ones that standout the most to me are the intro solos on "Into the Coven" and "Melissa". The neoclassical style of the former's solo especially gets me with that acoustic guitar in the background. Overall, this was a great listen and a good look into metal history. 8/10 album
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