Published on Aug 12, 2001
After he left Mercyful Fate in the mid-’80s, King Diamond made
some musical changes. Sure, he still made music that would scare
the hell out of any televenagelist-slash-bullshit artist, much less
an unsuspecting listener. But gone were the overtly Satanic images,
and in were story lines that suggested a much depeer horror than
that of the horned one.
Fatal Portrait, Diamond’s 1986 solo debut, features
songwriting that suggested nothing but the best for Diamond and his
bandmates, but when it comes to the storyline, it’s not his
strongest effort.
The story line, at least as far as I can decipher it, tells of
the spirit of a young girl, a spirit which was sucked out of her
young life by a jealous mother through a portrait she painted of
her daughter. As the child issued a curse upon her mother, the
child Molly’s spirit was trapped in a book her mother read from as
her portrait was burned. Many years later, our hero releases the
spirit of the child from that book, and the child plans her revenge
on her mother.
Okay, maybe this was enough to cause leaders of the PMRC to soil
their pants in fright back in 1986, but with all due respect to
Diamond, the plot line in
Fatal Portrait isn’t much harsher than your typical horror
movie being cranked out of Hollywood, and this story’s plot line is
a little difficult to follow in the second half of the album.
Musically, though,
Fatal Portrait is quite strong.
Granted, Diamond’s style of music is hardly that which would top
the Billboard singles charts, but there are some songs on
Fatal Portrait that stand out well enough on their own.
“Halloween” was the closest thing to a hit song Diamond had on this
album, and remains a fan favorite to this day, for good reason. I
never was really into Diamond’s music when I was a teenager, though
I heard enough of it on the nightly heavy metal show, so it was
surprising to hear songs like “Dressed In White,” “Voices From The
Past” (an 89-second instrumental passage) and “Haunted” only to
find myself recognizing these tracks. In truth, they’re all quite
good. Even the songs which might not be as familiar, like “The
Jonah,” “The Portrait” and “Lurking In The Dark,” all more often
than not fall into the enjoyable category.
The only real problem with
Fatal Portrait is that the storyline is as much an intregal
part of Diamond’s work as his music is, and without a strong story
to tie everything together, the album’s power dips a bit. This
isn’t to say it’s any less enjoyable to listen to, but there is the
aura of what could have been with this one. Admittedly, Diamond was
honing his talents, and still had his most famous works lying ahead
of him. So
Fatal Portrait serves as a springboard to those works – an
enjoyable disc to listen to, but not Diamond’s top-notch
creation.