Mercyful Fate - Don't Break The Oath review
| Band: | Mercyful Fate |
| Album: | Don't Break The Oath |
| Style: | First wave of black metal, Heavy metal |
| Release date: | September 1984 |
01. A Dangerous Meeting
02. Nightmare
03. Desecration Of Souls
04. Night Of The Unborn
05. The Oath
06. Gypsy
07. Welcome Princess Of Hell
08. To One Far Away
09. Come To The Sabbath
10. Death Kiss [demo] [2007 reissue bonus]
1984 was an interesting year for metal which saw the birth of peak albums like Iron Maiden's Powerslave and Metallica's Ride The Lightning, as well as offerings from Dio like The Last In Line and Metal Church's self-titled debut. Mercyful Fate's Don't Break The Oath was easily the darkest and heaviest album out of that group. The band would finally peak with the original lineup to bring us an album that showcased everyone's talents. From King's behemoth satanic prayer Don't Break The Oath to Timi Hansen's relentless driving bass lines in Night Of The Unborn, the band would make their mark in history as a serious black metal act. It's unfortunate that the world would have to wait nearly ten years before the band would return again in 1993.
Don't Break The Oath is a black metal offering which in 1984 had literally no comparison. Ride The Lightning and Powerslave were certainly as fast and as heavy, but both were exploring different genres lyrically while King was denying Jesus Christ and welcoming the princess of hell. Although he would return again in 1986 with Abigail, which King Diamond's fans know to be his grand masterpiece, he would never do anything as dark or as blasphemous again. It would also be unfair to toss Don't Break The Oath into only one musical genre because there are plenty of progressive concepts throughout. The album would make such an impression on this reviewer that I would eventually have the cover art tattooed on my right arm.
I didn't give it a 10 for originality because it follows right along the same lines as Melissa which isn't a bad thing at all, just more refined.
Comments
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Comments: 40
Visited by: 275 users
| Richard Posts: 4862 From: UK  |
Good review, and I agree with most of it, although personally I prefer Melissa. It's also encouraging to see you referring to it as a Black Metal album, as many people don't seem to associate Mercyful Fate with Black Metal these days. BTW, when King Diamond returned with his self-titled band, the first release was Fatal Portrait, not Abigail, but perhaps I misunderstood what you meant in that bit!
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| ponderer Posts: 153 From: Aruba  |
Fatal Portrait was released in 1985, and I'm pretty sure some of the singles were being worked out towards the end of 1984 when Mercyful Fate split. I just wanted to point out that Abigail's release would reassure any Mercyful Fate fans that King was back and just as heavy if not more so. Bad wording on my part and thanks for the comments.
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| Marcel Hubregtse Grumpy Old Fuck Posts: 40071 From: The Netherlands  |
Written by ponderer on 27.06.2008 at 21:34 I thought Fatal Portrait was released in 1985 as well, but somehow I keep on finding 1986 on the net everywhere. I'd better check at home by looking on the record sleeve. Btwe, nice review and I fully agree. Like Richard said kudos for calling this album black metal.
---- Member of the true crusade against European Flower Metal Yesterday is dead and gone, tomorrow is out of sight Dawn Crosby (r.i.p.) 05.04.1963 - 15.12.1996 
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| ponderer Posts: 153 From: Aruba |
I have the vinyl single of No Presents For Christmas which has a copyright date of 1985 and I think Fatal Portrait may have been late '85 or '86 and Abigail being '87 but produced in '86. I appreciate you guys trying to get the dates correct. I guess '86 - '87 was really his ultimate peak for the heaviest, darkest stuff from him ever. I think one of the main reasons people don't put Mercyful Fate in the Black Metal genre is because King isn't growling. You say "Black Metal" and kids today instantly think screaming and growling, but Black Metal was clearly rooted in darker themes with a relentless driving sound. Just sprinkle in some abstract progressive concepts and you've got Mercyful Fate.
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| Marcel Hubregtse Grumpy Old Fuck Posts: 40071 From: The Netherlands |
Written by ponderer on 28.06.2008 at 12:42 What I see is that people who were into metal at the time Mercyful Fate released their first stuff are the ones who recognize it as black metal whereas today's kiddies have no notion of history and go all revisionist concerning these matters.
---- Member of the true crusade against European Flower Metal Yesterday is dead and gone, tomorrow is out of sight Dawn Crosby (r.i.p.) 05.04.1963 - 15.12.1996
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| Deadsoulman Posts: 8004 From: France  |
I'll probably be shot for saying this, but I can't stand the vocals on this album. The music is great, it really is, but KD's vocals turn me off so much that it's almost painful to me to sit through the whole album. Anyway, good review 
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| Marcel Hubregtse Grumpy Old Fuck Posts: 40071 From: The Netherlands |
Written by Deadsoulman on 28.06.2008 at 14:30 No, you will not be shot for that.  I can understand people having problem with his vocals but please don't say you like his current vocals then.
---- Member of the true crusade against European Flower Metal Yesterday is dead and gone, tomorrow is out of sight Dawn Crosby (r.i.p.) 05.04.1963 - 15.12.1996
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| Deadsoulman Posts: 8004 From: France |
Oh no, his current vocals are very fine. Now at least he's not out of tune 
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| Marcel Hubregtse Grumpy Old Fuck Posts: 40071 From: The Netherlands |
Written by Deadsoulman on 28.06.2008 at 15:08 At the time he wasn't out of tune either, and his vocal range was much wider than it is now.
---- Member of the true crusade against European Flower Metal Yesterday is dead and gone, tomorrow is out of sight Dawn Crosby (r.i.p.) 05.04.1963 - 15.12.1996
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| ponderer Posts: 153 From: Aruba |
HAH! The first time I heard this band I wanted to puke. King annoyed the hell out of me until I finally figured out he was actually a genius. Listen to the overdubs and mixing job he does There are at least 3 vocal tracks during the break on Satan's Fall on Melissa (Innocent lovers, it's a lie!!! AHHHH AHHHH AHHH AHHHH AHHHHH) etc, which are just amazingly beautiful. One goes low, one stays midrange, one goes way into the stratosphere. Just amazing work. The only person I can even remotely compare King's genius to is John Arch from Fates Warning on The Spectre Within and Awaken the Guardian. These guys really knew how to lay down the tracks and overdub and mix. There are some stunning harmonies in King's work throughout Mercyful Fate and King Diamond and he's never out of tune unless it's live. King has a fantastic ear.Forgot to mention the vocal mixing on the original Melissa recording of the song Melissa. That opening is something else man.
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| SatyriconChick Posts: 248 From: USA  |
Best damn Mercyful Fate album. Classic stuff, and great review! 
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| Fat & Sassy! Posts: 3857 From: USA  |
Written by Marcel Hubregtse on 28.06.2008 at 13:23 Maybe the ignorant young people think so, because the FIRST thing I thought when I first heard this album was, "Wow, I bet this helped to start the original Black Metal movement". I recognize that King Diamond was ahead of his time without outside opinions or "music time-line facts".  Oh, btw... This album kicks all kinds of ass! >:[
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| Lord_Regnier Posts: 1469 From: Canada  |
Imo, the only band who sounded kinda like what we label today as Black Metal in the 80s is Bathory. Hellhammer, Celtic Frost, Mercyful Fate, Venom...They all sound like old school Thrash and not like Black Metal. The riffs belong to Thrash and not Black Metal most of the time. In general, these bands are also not fast enough (apart from perhaps Venom) and vocals are not typical BM vocals. Bathory is faster than all of them and Quorthon's vocals are really BM vocals. I would say that on some aspects, I consider Slayer's material until "Hell Awaits" and Kreator until "Pleasure To Kill" closer to BM than any of the band from the so-called first wave of BM, except from Bathory.
---- "Why would we fear death, when life is so much more frightening?"
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| Angelic Storm Melodious Posts: 6675 From: UK  |
Great album! Although I do have to say, I prefer "Melissa". As for the arguement about Mercyful Fate being black metal...what we know as black metal today, and even in the early 90's/late 80's, is genre wise, very far removed from what Mercyful Fate were doing in the early 80's. In spirit, and lyrically, there isnt that much difference, if any. But musically, MF are very removed from a band like Mayhem who were one of the first, if not THE first black metal band. I think most people would agree that MF are not in the same musical genre as Mayhem. I think musically at least, Venom probably influenced the genre of black metal more.
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| Lord_Regnier Posts: 1469 From: Canada |
Written by Angelic Storm on 01.06.2010 at 07:28 Like you're saying, lyrically it can be close to BM, but it's music and not lyrics that defines genres. And, musically, all bands from the so-called first wave of BM (except from Bathory, though Bathory's music was still rooted in old school Thrash even if I would label their old albums as BM) are quite different from BM as we know it nowadays. Hellhammer- the only way I label it is old 'noise', it sounded like pure shit Celtic Frost- I would label it much more as Doom Metal or old school Thrash, that is until they turned to glam on "Cold Lake" Venom- old school Thrash Metal (but the closest to BM, apart from Bathory) Mercyful Fate- old school Thrash, though I even hesitate to label it as Thrash because I find it kinda too slow and rock-ish
---- "Why would we fear death, when life is so much more frightening?"
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| Marcel Hubregtse Grumpy Old Fuck Posts: 40071 From: The Netherlands |
But Bathory started off as a Venom rip-off. Just listen to the two tracks they released on the compilation before releasing their debut/Calling old MF thrash is just ridiculous there not a single thrash bit in it. It is more like an evil version of Judas Priest. As for Hellhammer sounding like pure shit back then... they still sound like pure shit nowadays
---- Member of the true crusade against European Flower Metal Yesterday is dead and gone, tomorrow is out of sight Dawn Crosby (r.i.p.) 05.04.1963 - 15.12.1996
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| Lord_Regnier Posts: 1469 From: Canada |
Written by Marcel Hubregtse on 01.06.2010 at 17:37 Concerning Bathory, I would say that their first album is more blackened Thrash Metal and not pure Black Metal. They became really BM with "The Return". I hold back my comment a bit on Mercyful Fate earlier to avoid rising protestations but I also think it has pretty much nothing in common with Thrash Metal. In fact, apart from lyrics, this band is quite soft, imo. As for Hellhammer, I must say that I'm a fan a raw music and 'poor' production. I enjoy old Bathory, early Slayer, old Kreator, Nocternity, Taake, old Darkthrone, old Satyricon, Pagan Hellfire, Summoning's "Lugburz" and many others. From my point of view, that's how metal should sound: raw and underproduced. That being said, Hellhammer is not what I'd call raw. It just sounds plain shitty. Though lots of people make the generalization that raw = shitty sounding, there's a difference for me between a well-done raw sound and just sounding like crap. You hear almost nothing in Hellhammer, only distortion and noise. And the little bit of music you can find behind all the noise is extremely mediocre.
---- "Why would we fear death, when life is so much more frightening?"
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| ponderer Posts: 153 From: Aruba |
Thrash... AHAHAHAHAHA. That's easily the dumbest comparison I've seen on MS to date.
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| Angelic Storm Melodious Posts: 6675 From: UK |
Written by Lord_Regnier on 01.06.2010 at 14:40 I agree that its the music of a band that is the main determination in the genre of a band rather than the lyrics. For this reason, I would not label MF black metal. To me, MF are more like a satanic version of Judas Priest. The music is much more in keeping with traditional metal than what we now know as black metal. It was the lyrics and imagery which seperated Mercyful Fate from bands like Priest and traditional metal bands.
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| Marcel Hubregtse Grumpy Old Fuck Posts: 40071 From: The Netherlands |
Written by Angelic Storm on 04.06.2010 at 00:03 The problem here however is that in the early 80s black metal was defined by lyrics and imagery and not by a specific sound, that only came later on. On a different level NWOBHM is also not one specific sound but a period of time. Some times genres pop up that are characterized by something other than the sound of it and sometimes it evolves into a specific sound only later on.
---- Member of the true crusade against European Flower Metal Yesterday is dead and gone, tomorrow is out of sight Dawn Crosby (r.i.p.) 05.04.1963 - 15.12.1996
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| Lord_Regnier Posts: 1469 From: Canada |
Written by Marcel Hubregtse on 04.06.2010 at 17:00 True, However, from my point of view, we must label bands according to todays standards and not those of 25 years or so ago. It's like those people who try to tell you that bands like Twisted Sister or Motley Crue are metal. They are not. It just happened that they have been falsely labeled as metal by some people back then. Same case here: bands like Mercyful fate and Celtic Frost have been falsely labeled as Black Metal, while they are not. Or at least we could say they were BM for those old obsolete standards but they are not BM for todays standards. We both are 'old' metallers and we understand it. Problem is you find lots of people (mostly older metallers like us) who simply refuse to evolve and live with their time, so they will never get out of some kind of denial phase.
---- "Why would we fear death, when life is so much more frightening?"
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| Marcel Hubregtse Grumpy Old Fuck Posts: 40071 From: The Netherlands |
Written by Lord_Regnier on 05.06.2010 at 01:17 I disagree with you here. It's like saying that cars from the late 1800s aren't cars anymore. Or that the Wright's brothers airplane isn't an airplane cause it isn't like anything we have today. Yes metal did evolve and will keep on evolving but that doesn't mean that it stops being metal at some point because of how it has evolved. I will keep on fighting the revisionism rife in metal till the day I die
---- Member of the true crusade against European Flower Metal Yesterday is dead and gone, tomorrow is out of sight Dawn Crosby (r.i.p.) 05.04.1963 - 15.12.1996
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| X-Ray Rod Skandino Posts: 18274 From: Sweden  |
I'm a young metal fan, but I do agree 100% with Marcel. Metal has been evolving a lot but that doesn't mean we have to reinvent the entire friggin wheel and dissmiss the first model. Hell.... I won't surprise me that when I get older, aound 40 years old I will hear some kids saying "Black Sabbath? Metal?". It will be the same thing.
---- Written by BloodTears on 19.08.2011 at 18:29 Written by Milena on 20.06.2012 at 10:49
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| Angelic Storm Melodious Posts: 6675 From: UK |
The main thing that really caught my eye in the last few posts is when Lord Reginer said ''Celtic Frost and Mercyful Fate have been falsely labelled as black metal''. Now, although Im not a young metal fan, *cries* I am not quite old enough to have been around, or at least to have been a fan of metal like MF and Celtic Frost when they first came around. If it is true that both Mercyful Fate AND Celtic Frost were labelled as black metal back in the day, then this instantly throws up a problem for me, as I wouldnt even consider those bands to be in the same genre. So even removing completely the arguements concerning the clearly defined genre of black metal today, if Celtic Frost and MF could be placed in the same genre, when to me they clearly arent, at least musically, then its obvious to me that the genre had not really been defined at that point. Although I totally see where Marcel is coming from, Im going to have to agree with Lord Reginer on this one!  @Mr. Doctor: Ive already heard some kids saying that about Sabbath. Especially the early Sabbath. "Harmonica! Harmonicas arent metal! This isn't metal!'', Ive seen this type of reaction to the song ''The Wizard'' lol
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| Lord_Regnier Posts: 1469 From: Canada |
Written by Marcel Hubregtse on 05.06.2010 at 11:41 Cars from the late 1800s are still cars but they're obsolete and no one judges the quality of the cars we have today by comparing them to those old rigs you had to crank to start up the engine. And no one use those old cars or airplanes nowadays under normal circumstances. They are outdated, obsolete. Exactly like the standards to judge metal in the 80s are obsolete today. What happened with music is metal changed so much that, imo, no sane person can compare Twisted Sister to metal bands and still believe it is metal. It is no more than hard rock. Always has been. To follow your reasoning about old cars still being cars, the fundamental difference here is the old cars have always been cars, just of a different kind, while hard rock bands have NEVER been metal and bands like Mercyful Fate and Celtic Frost have NEVER been Black Metal simply because BM as a defined genre didn't exist in the 80s. It was only a loose term used to gather some bands together based on no real logic. Just like the term 'speed metal' has been used to label bands like Motorhead (which is close to traditional heavy metal) early Helloween and Blind Guardian (Powermetal-oriented) and Thrash Metal. The thing with metal is it's relatively recent, so terms have to evolve with time. @Angelic Storm: I would label Mercyful Fate as dark traditional Heavy Metal and Celtic Frost as Doom Metal. And I must say I never liked Celtic Frost in the slightest because I always saw a certain level of poserism in this band (confirmed by the lame move they made with the abomination "Cold Lake" is). I've never been able to take this band seriously. Also, I utterly hate the vocals: they're whimpy and pathetic.
---- "Why would we fear death, when life is so much more frightening?"
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| DayFly Posts: 383 From: Germany  |
You are such a hypocrite, oh humbly named one. For someone who constantly proclaims how much he hates the herd mentality of the metal subculture, you do put a lot of effort at staying all current and trendy. Whether or not the labels for the dinosaur acts of the 80s are obsolete nowadays, the music is not. No "sane person" would give a fuck whether they are listening to hard rock, heavy metal or thrash as long as it fits their tastes. Mercyful Fate was associated with the vague term black metal just as Twisted Sister was associated with the equally elusive term metal and for convenience alone they should be now as well. If a reviewer describes a band as "akin to early 80s black metal" anyone could picture what the music would sound like. And it is far easier to understand than "sinister 80s metal that is neither thrash, death, doom, power or heavy."
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| Lord_Regnier Posts: 1469 From: Canada |
Written by DayFly on 05.06.2010 at 16:51 There's a difference between following trends and living in the past. I follow no trend but I also refuse to become outdated. If you're not smart enough to seize the nuance, it's your problem not mine. I already knew you were precisely one of those people stuck in the 80s. Anyway, all you're doing is trying to find reasons to insult me or whatever because you dislike me, so fuck off. I refuse to be stuck in the 80s, like so many metalheads are. And, to tell the truth, I don't care for the opinion of people like you who take offense at any criticism. You call me a hypocrite? Then I will tell you directly: fuck you, douchebag, if you're not happy. My comments insult your ego because, looking at your list, you're basically a fan of hard rock and false metal.
---- "Why would we fear death, when life is so much more frightening?"
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| X-Ray Rod Skandino Posts: 18274 From: Sweden |
Celtic Frost... Doom metal, probably Monotheist but otherwise I completely fail to hear doom metal in their discography.
---- Written by BloodTears on 19.08.2011 at 18:29 Written by Milena on 20.06.2012 at 10:49
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| DayFly Posts: 383 From: Germany |
You know, normally I ignore people like you. But proving a dolt to be dolt does grant me a certain amount of satisfaction, so here we go: Quote: Oozing with arrogance, aren't we here? As if a person could be outdated for not using a few labels. Quote: So what? Quote: Oh, I do not have to "try". You are the worst and most persistent bully I've seen thus far on this site. Almost every post of yours is trying to be offensive in one way or the other. Quote: Like you would know. I have never once seen you criticise anything. The only thing you ever do is say how much European power metal sucks. Quote: Yep, guilty as charged, thank you for rubbing it under my nose. If it actually were so, would that make me less of a music fan?
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| Angelic Storm Melodious Posts: 6675 From: UK |
Written by X-Ray Rod on 05.06.2010 at 18:10 Yep, Celtic Frost were never doom metal aside from their latest album. They were more like a thrash band....I mean songs like "Into The Crypt Of Rays" and "Circle Of The Tyrants" are like thrash with a touch of traditional metal in there as well. The ultra raw production does give those first 2 albums a feel of black metal, even if they werent that. lol
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