King Diamond is using his COVID-19 downtime to work on new albums from both King Diamond and Mercyful Fate. The new King Diamond album will be a two-part record called The Institute, which we already heard one song from. As for Mercyful Fate, it'll be the band's first new record since 1999 and will be what King Diamond tells The Electric Theater With Clown "very old-fashioned."
Diamond adds he has the new Mercyful Fate album title and cover art in hand, but won't reveal what they are or what it looks like.
“I’m writing with Hank [Shermann, guitar] from Mercyful Fate and writing with Andy [LaRocque, guitar] for King Diamond and writing on my own for King Diamond.
“For King Diamond, it’s an album that’s gonna be called The Institute, which is part one of two — there’ll be two full albums that will be completing a full story. And as the title [suggests], there’s gonna be some crazy weird stuff.
“And for Mercy, I also have the title, but I’m not giving it out to anybody at the moment. We have the front cover for the new Mercy too. It’s very correct, very right for Mercyful Fate. It’s very back to basics.”
“For my part, with both Mercy and King albums — even more King Diamond, I would say — all vocals are gonna be lead vocals again, like they were in the old days. It didn’t matter if there was a choir singing on the right side or the left side, or whatever, they would still go and pick up parts of the lyrics to progress the story and so on. So it’s gonna be anything goes with the vocals, for sure — back to the old style.
“And for Mercy too, it’s gonna be very old-fashioned — Hank is writing very much like the old days. And it’s nice to feel that we can capture that again. So that’s two albums that are being worked on that will be done by the time we can go out and tour again, I’m sure.”
The new Mercyful Fate record will feature Diamond alongside his Mercyful Fate bandmates guitarists Hank Shermann and Mike Wead, drummer Bjarne T. Holm, and newly-joined bassist Joey Vera (Fates Warning, Armored Saint).
