King Diamond has been working on a new album called The Institute for a few years now. We got to hear the single "Masquerade Of Madness" back in 2019, but that's been all so far. According to guitarist Andy La Rocque in an interview with The Metal Voice, King Diamond and his crew intend to finish and put out The Institute before hitting the road.
"Our goal is to go out on the road again when all this COVID stuff is over with. And before that, we need to have an album out there. So, we've got some pressure, yes," said La Rocque.
"King's got a lot of crazy ideas, of course. He's got the basic lines of the story already in his mind. And I have, actually, four or five songs that could be possible for the next album, and I know he's got tons of riffs and stuff going around in his head too. So, as soon as he sits down and gets it down on tape, it's gonna go fast."
La Rocque said progress on The Institute was slow going at first during the pandemic, but riffs were certainly written.
"It was difficult, because we had a few shows booked at the time it started with the COVID. It came like a shock for all of us, I believe. So [we] got kind of paralyzed in the beginning. And then [we] tried to do the best out of it, and that is just to sit down and write riffs and trying to survive with other things, like producing other bands in the studio… We just tried to adapt to the new situation and [make] new plans, of course, for the future."
