MP3: King Diamond - No presents for Christmas

Taking a break for bit, see y'all in 2012.

King Diamond - No presents for Christmas

MP3: King Diamond - No presents for Christmas

You'll get nothing and you'll like it.

King Diamond - No presents for Christmas

MP3: Haust - No Christmas

It's not going to displace King Diamond's "No presents for Christmas" as my #1 holiday tune, but Haust's "No Christmas" comes close. Finally, a tune from the Alternativ Julekalender worth reposting!

Haust - No Christmas

In Solitude to Metal Blade

Lambgoat reports that Metal Blade has signed Swedish metal act In Solitude: http://www.lambgoat.com/news/view.aspx?id=15459
The band recorded their new album at Nicke Andersson (Hellacopters, Death Breath, Imperial State Electric, etc.) at his new Gutterview Studios in Stockholm with Fred Estby (Dismember, Necronaut) producing. Expect a spring 2011 release. And as for those UFO comparisons, I dunno... as far as I'm concerned, the band's 2008 self-titled debut sounds way more like Mercyful Fate/King Diamond worship to me. Not that that's a bad thing.

Farewell to 2009

A few statistics for the year, should you be curious...

Total news items: 3880
Reviews: 77
Mp3s: 235

Top downloads (for tracks posted in 2009):
01. Florence Valentin - Spring Ricco
02. Ison & Fille - Jag skratter idag
03. King Diamond - No presents for Christmas (slightly cheating since I also posted it last year)
04. The Scrags - Psycho cyclone
05. Mercy - Heavy metal warriors

Top search terms:
01. Porno (no surprise, though I suspect most people aren't actually looking for the Swedish rapper)
02. Darkthrone
03. King Diamond
04. Melody Club
05. Black Uniforms

Remember, the mailorder goes on hibernation tomorrow so get your orders in now. Otherwise, I'm hard at work on revamping the site for 2010 and will be back with regular updates next week. Take care and happy New Year!

MP3: King Diamond - No presents for Christmas

Might as well turn this into an annual tradition; you get what you deserve: "No presents for Christmas"
I'll continue to post top 10 lists every day until 2010, but don't expect regular updates to pick up again until January 4. In the meantime, I'll be polishing up a few small changes on the site revamp I have in the works and will be enjoying some much-needed time off. Happy holidays!

King Diamond - No presents for Christmas

MP3: Notre Dame - I bring Nosferatu you

Where I grew up, we knew the night before Halloween as "Mischief Night". I've heard it called all sorts of other things, but y'know what? It's all a pack of lies. And if there's something musical befitting Mischief Night, it's the b-movie horror-inspired sounds of Notre Dame, the more-or-less solo act of oversized metal personality Snowy Shaw (ex-Mercyful Fate, King Diamond, Dream Evil, etc.). As his resumé would suggest, Notre Dame plays heavy metal mixed with a touch of blackness and a hefty dose of camp, but on this particular track, it's pretty much all camp. How could you not love a song with such a punny title? It won't be the scariest thing you'll hear this year (for that, I recommend Australia's Portal, whose new album "Swarth" is truly disturbing), but it should hopefully help you get in the proper holiday mood.

Notre Dame - I bring Nosferatu you

MP3: King Diamond - No presents for Christmas

It's a Trap! will be taking a short, much-needed break after today to recharge the batteries and put the finishing touches on a new site revamp. See you in 2009?

King Diamond - No presents for Christmas

MP3: Black Rose - The end

Halloween isn't Halloween without a little King Diamond, so today I've got a track for you from Black Rose, King's band pre-Mercyful Fate. The group formed in 1979 and put out a few records, but the stuff I like best are the rehearsal tapes that were reissued in 2001. The band always had a killer hard-rock sound, but on this stuff the organ is way louder, giving them an even stronger Deep Purple/Iron Butterfly vibe. And for those who are convinced that King's, uh, "distinctive" vocals are not to their taste, you may be surprised here because he doesn't really do any of the falsetto wailing he's known for. Lyrically, it's still pure comic book horror, so naturally that's why I'm offering it to you on this fine Hallow's Eve, but it's not prototypical scary metal. And dig that extended jam that makes up the bulk of the track! Maybe not quite as awesome as some of Fate's best work, but still damn cool, especially that organ solo. Crank it up and have a happy Halloween!

Black Rose - The end

MP3: King Diamond - No presents for Christmas

King Diamond - No presents for Christmas

MP3: Mercyful Fate - Black funeral

Halloween, the season of the witch - a perfect time for creepy music, a perfect time for some classic Mercyful Fate. Frontman King Diamond may live in Texas nowadays (and has for years now), but he started out in Denmark, so this damn well qualifies as perfect Friday posting material. I'm too young to know what it must've been like to hear something like "Melissa" when it was first released in 1983, but it certainly made an impression on my fragile little mind when I did finally get around to hearing it as a teenager. No one else has a voice like that and the twin guitars of Michael Denner and Hank Shermann are unfuckwithable. I won't kid you - Fate's occult-obsessed lyrics are way more comic book scary than real-life scary, but I still get a visceral thrill hearing King shriek "Yes, hail Satan!" Furthermore, and I can't believe I haven't told this story here before, Mercyful Fate changed my life. Really! I went through a few different musical phases throughout my gradeschool career, dabbling here and there before eventually immersing myself in punk. I blindly accepted the idea that guitar solos are pure wankery and renounced the music of my youth. And then, sometime around my junior year of high school, I got the funny idea of seeing the recently reunited Mercyful Fate on the "Time" tour. I figured, what the hell - it'll be good for a laugh seeing the diminuative King Diamond prance around on stage in his makeup with his mic stand of bones. But you know what? They kicked ass. I wasn't laughing, I was reborn. So thank you Mercyful Fate, for setting me straight, back on the path of righteousness.

Mercyful Fate - Black funeral

Have I never posted anything from Notre Dame before? I feel like the answer is no and that's a damn shame because they're an excellent act and seriously underappreciated. Band leader Snowy Shaw spent some time playing drums for King Diamond and Mercyful Fate some years back before getting frustrated that he wasn't able to contribute his own musical ideas to those projects, so he started Notre Dame, among many other sideprojects such as Memento Mori, Illwill and more recently, Dream Evil. I spent a good chunk of time yesterday listening to some of my old 'Fate records, so I thought why not post a cover tune by an ex-member? Or something like that. I guess I could've posted an actual Fate original since they are actually Danish, but King Diamond has lived in Texas so long it just doesn't seem right. It's almost like considering Metallica to be a Danish act since Lars was born there and we all know that just isn't right. So anyhow, there was a time in the late 90s when everyone seemed to be gung-ho about doing metal tribute albums. The Listenable Records tribute to Mercyful Fate is definitely not the best of the bunch (that title belongs to the first "Slaytanic slaughter" tribute to Slayer), but it's not bad. Pretty much every contribution is played straight-ahead except, that is, for Notre Dame. Snowy Shaw is actually all over this damn comp - he does vocals for Luciferion and also contributes a cover of "Evil" under his own name - but it's the final track "Into the coven" that stands out most. It takes the original song into a whole new dimension of grandeur and theatrics. What's also great about Snowy is that he doesn't take his work too seriously. His comic book-meets-metal vision is often light-hearted and fun, but it's definitely not the same as ironic detachment. This is not like whats-his-name from Pinback playing with Goblin Cock. There is no question that this is true metal. No sly winks or expensive "vintage" t-shirts. Be forewarned however, this is an epic track so that means an equally epic 16mb download. Enjoy!

MP3: Notre Dame - Into the coven

Have I never posted anything from Notre Dame before? I feel like the answer is no and that's a damn shame because they're an excellent act and seriously underappreciated. Band leader Snowy Shaw spent some time playing drums for King Diamond and Mercyful Fate some years back before getting frustrated that he wasn't able to contribute his own musical ideas to those projects, so he started Notre Dame, among many other sideprojects such as Memento Mori, Illwill and more recently, Dream Evil. I spent a good chunk of time yesterday listening to some of my old 'Fate records, so I thought why not post a cover tune by an ex-member? Or something like that. I guess I could've posted an actual Fate original since they are actually Danish, but King Diamond has lived in Texas so long it just doesn't seem right. It's almost like considering Metallica to be a Danish act since Lars was born there and we all know that just isn't right. So anyhow, there was a time in the late 90s when everyone seemed to be gung-ho about doing metal tribute albums. The Listenable Records tribute to Mercyful Fate is definitely not the best of the bunch (that title belongs to the first "Slaytanic slaughter" tribute to Slayer), but it's not bad. Pretty much every contribution is played straight-ahead except, that is, for Notre Dame. Snowy Shaw is actually all over this damn comp - he does vocals for Luciferion and also contributes a cover of "Evil" under his own name - but it's the final track "Into the coven" that stands out most. It takes the original song into a whole new dimension of grandeur and theatrics. What's also great about Snowy is that he doesn't take his work too seriously. His comic book-meets-metal vision is often light-hearted and fun, but it's definitely not the same as ironic detachment. This is not like whats-his-name from Pinback playing with Goblin Cock. There is no question that this is true metal. No sly winks or expensive "vintage" t-shirts. Be forewarned however, this is an epic track so that means an equally epic 16mb download. Enjoy!

Notre Dame - Into the coven

The Tartarean Desire webzine talks to King Diamond about the possibility of a new Mercyful Fate album, Dimebag Darrel's on-stage murder and more: http://www.tartareandesire.com/interviews/kingdiamond.html

Download two tracks from Danish all-star metal act Force of Evil off their new album "Black empire": http://www.forceofevil.net/7.htm
As mentioned before, FoE features current and ex Mercyful Fate members Michael Denner, Hank Shermann and Bjarne Holm as well as Hal Patino (King Diamond) and Martin Steene (ex-Ironfire).