Customer Reviews

Melissa

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Arguably the most original and critically acclaimed group to come from Denmark was Mercyful Fate. Mercyful Fate's nucleus comprised of the multi-octave vocals of King Diamond aka Kim Bendix Petersen, and the twin lead guitar attack of Hank Sherman aka Rene Krolmark and Michael Denner. "Melissa" was the group's first formal recording and was a featured LP for Road Runner Records. Although "Melissa" was originally released in 1983, and re-released in 1997, Roadrunner Records has remastered the songs and released this classic for your listening enjoyment. It includes the highly sought after early 1980's BBC sessions, two extra demo tracks of "Black Funeral", and "Curse of the Pharaohs" and a three track DVD featuring live footage of the band during early 1983. A commentary by King Diamond himself narrates the performance and the story of the group during that time frame. Mercyful Fate pioneered a sub genre of ultra heavy and complex music renown for its macabre lyrics, and Satanic/occultism driven imagery and attitude called Black Metal.

The relevance of "Melissa" as a recording is immense. Firstly the LP had 7 drop dead knock out classics including the 11 minute opus "Satan's Fall" Secondly, Mercyful Fate's sound was so obscenely original that to this day not another group even vaguely comes close to emulating them. And thirdly, Mercyful Fate's success paved the way for many other extremely heavy artists to prosper.

In conclusion, this group's body of work isn't for everybody, and some will find the subject content and or delivery of Mercyful Fate's music to be uncomfortable. But for those who are interested in truly groundbreaking Metal classics and the development of the genre of darker Metal music, this CD/DVD package is a must have for your collection! Be sure to check out Mercyful Fate's 9 other releases, King Diamond's solo work and Force of Evil's cds featuring Hank Sherman and Michael Denner

this album includes a dvd of three songs by mercyful fate from the live at the dynamo in holland 1983

track list for dvd:
1.doomed by the living dead
2.black funeral
3.curse of the pharaohs
*also inludes exclusive commentary by king diamond

but wait there more it also includes a cd of melissa

track list:

1.Evil
2.Curse Of The Pharaohs
3.Into The Coven
4.At The Sound Of The Demon Bell
5.Black Funeral
6.Satan's Fall
7.Melissa
* all tracks remastered

bonus tracks:
8.black masses (b-side of the "black funeral" single)
9.curse of the pharaohs(bbc radio 1 session)
10.evil(bbc radio 1 session)
11.satan's fall (bbc radio 1 session)
12.curse of the pharaohs (demo)
13.black funeral (demo)



also this album kicks ass I love mercyful fate and king diamond

I also recommend you buy some celtic frost.

Here is another re-release for Mercyful Fate's Melissa album. I already owned two different versions when I saw this but I had to get it for the demos and for the Live DVD. You should know this already, but if you don't, this is one of the top five heavy metal albums of all time, in my opinion. The song writing is top notch, combining great melody with brutal riffing. You'll hear influences from NWOBHM, thrash, true-metal and even some blues. The singing of King Diamond, in my opinion, is amazing! Some people can't get past it though, so if you don't like high pitched singing and screaming this might not be for you. But, still give it a listen, the music will win you over.

The two demos on the Melissa album are nice and to my knowledge not available anywhere else. All of the BBC tracks are available on the album Beginning. Now, for the DVD. It is a shame that they couldn't have made it longer. I mean, if you're gonna keep taking our money give us more! Well, they got my money anyways! The sound and camera work isn't very good, but what do you expect, it's 1983. The songs are pretty choice that they used, although I would have loved to see them play Satan's Fall! It also would have been nice if they would have shown more of Hank Sherman's solos! The commentary tracks by King Diamond are pretty neat, as he gives you little details about that time period and the members. It's a little hard to understand him sometimes though. Overall this package is well worth the money. Especially if you don't own this album yet!

When I said that this album is in my top five, I include in that Metallica - Kill 'Em All; Diamond Head - Lightning To The Nations; Witchfinder General - Death Penalty; Black Sabbath - Black Sabbath...so trust me or not.

An excellent release. Always my favorite Mercyful Fate album, this version is an improvment over the remastered version due to the inclusion of a video of three live tracks. The optional commentary by King Diamond is a nice touch. The sound quality of the video is about what one would expect from a pre-Melissa club setting. Not as good as my "Live from the Depths of Hell" boot, but good enough. They used three cameras, so the footage is quite nice.

I have the remastered version of Melissa as well, but really, to have a video of Doomed by the Living Dead makes it worth twice the price. Of course, this only whets my appetite to have a full DVD release from the Melissa and "Oath" period. How about it guys?

Though short-lived in their first incarnation, Danish metallers Mercyful Fate had an indelible impact on the metal world, releasing two of the finest metal LPs of the first half of the 80s. Though initially most famous for front man King Diamond's ludicrous satanic posturing, the musical achievements of "Melissa" and "Don't Break the Oath" remain remarkable long after the lyrics have become comically dated. With "Melissa" MF pushed on the innovations of late 70s Judas Priest, adding even greater theatricality, intensity and sonic detail to the intricate twin-guitar attack plus schizophrenic, octave-hopping vocals pioneered by Halford and co. This kind of overblown metallic theater isn't for everyone, but MF do it about as well as one could hope.

"Melissa" comes crashing out the gate with "Evil," an all-time metal classic. This one highlights all of the bands strengths, with myriad crunching riffs and some impressive melodic leads buttressing Diamond's delirious vocal exercises, where he snarls and shrieks with abandon. (The lyrics to this one are delightful too.) The songwriting here is consistently riff-oriented (in contrast to much Diamond solo material), which means Diamond's wild vox must change inexplicably as he fits his lines into the dense material. (See the epic, shifting "Satan's Fall," where Diamond includes catchy line after line despite the ever changing, linear structure.) While Diamond would later emphasize his falsetto range and lower snarl, here we see much more of his more conventional range, more of a straight, classic metal voice. (This is another particular strength, as Diamond's weird vox are most interesting in contrast to more normal singing.) To match Diamond's vox, MFs instrumental section mixes it up nicely as well, sometimes displaying a taste for atmospherics, as in the moodier, even gentle title track, and the terrific gothic middle break to the otherwise propulsive "Into the Coven." Despite the generally proggy approach, they occasionally cut down on the sophistication to deliver a more straight forward track, as in the amusing "Curse of the Pharaohs" and the, dare I say it, sonically rather commercial "Black Funeral." (This is most memorable for the lines "All hail Satan! / Yes, hail Satan!" just in case anyone had yet to discern Diamond's position regarding Satan.) Most significantly, none of these 7 tracks would remotely qualify as filler, each delivering both instrumentally and vocally.

All in all, "Melissa" remains a metal classic, and mandatory listening for all metalheads. Check it out.

Unquestionably, Mercyful Fate's "Melissa", Venom's "Black Metal", early Celtic Frost and early Bathory are considered the foundations of modern black metal. Although the music on "Melissa" has more akin to the foundations of modern power metal than black metal, the black metal attitude is definitely there. No self-described fan of heavy music can call their collection complete if they do not have this album. Bands ranging from Metallica to Pearl Jam to Emperor have discussed the influence of Mercyful Fate on them. It really doesn't get much better than songs like "Evil", "Curse of the Pharoahs", "Into the Coven" and "Satan's Fall".

It is also worth spending the extra few bucks to get this version for the interesting liner notes in which King, Hank, Michael, and the album's producer describe the recording process. It is also worth it for the bonus live official "bootleg" on disc 2 because it is of good quality for a bootleg.

5 star classic!

This is the classic remaster for the 25th Anniversary of 'Melissa'. What can you say? This was the original, an innovator. This is probably the catchiest and straight "cult" records of 'Black' Metal history. Just listen to the first song, "Evil" and you're hooked. If you call yourself a heavy metal fan, you need to buy this, even if you already had the original. Comes with a 3 song DVD with commentary by King.

I originally owned this album in 1984, and I remember putting it in for the first time, not knowing what to expect, and simply being blown away. It was actually scary at the time - I felt like I was doing something very wrong by owning this album and I most certainly didn't let my parents hear it! From the opening lines of "Evil" all the way through the end, this album just oozes, well, evil. The riffs and songs are just off the scale - awesome. This is one of the most fun metal albums of the 80's to listen to, no question. It stands up against the best stuff from Maiden (and I LOVE Maiden) or any other band of that time. After not hearing this album for probably 20 years, I repurchased the 25th anniversary release and have fallen in love with it all over again - like a long lost forbidden friend! Of course, it must be said that many people will not be able to get past King Diamond's extensive use of falsetto, but those people are missing out. I would also consider this album very "proggy" in the sense that they are constantly introducing new and increasingly interesting musical ideas. They are not satisfied with just three chord, verse-chorus-verse-chorus songs. These songs move and progress, and are always throwing something great at you. "Satan's Fall" is simply epic and has some of the most ominous sounding riffs you'll hear. "Melissa" is beautifully spooky. "Into the Coven" is just awesome, and the list goes on - every song is a solid classic of the era, and the album as a whole stands up today as well as it did almost 30 years ago. A treasure for any metal collection.

Paradigm breaking. Honestly, I can give or take some of the lyrics. In spite of that, this is still a seminal album if you like your music heavy and bad @-s-s! I could care less about why they split up, but it's a crying shame they did, 'cause Denner and Sherman are an amazing double threat on guitar. Add in that kind of vocal ability... in the last 25 years few bands have made such a definitive impact on a genre of music as Fate did with just 2 albums: Melissa and Don't Break the Oath. I can still remember picking up 'Melissa' in 1983, just cause the cover looked sweet and the song titles sounded promising, lol...one of only a couple times in my life I can recall the hair on the back of my neck standing straight up!

As to this particular remastering, it sounds great... but then, tho' keep in mind my comparison is a thoroughly worn 28 year old vinyl copy. The extras are very nice additions, to be sure, but you should buy it anyway!

I first listened to this on vinyl is 1985 and it is still a masterpiece. Melissa and Don't Break the Oath are the best of Mercyful Fates work. If anybody wants to know how the true masters of evil music began, this is it. Their influence can be heard on almost every Satanic/Death/Black Metal album that came out after this record. I read how the juvenile idiots today argue over what is Black Metal/Death Metal etc... but none of it matters because it was started and perfected by Mercyful Fate and Venom in the early eighties. As someone who grew up in that time period I can assure you there was knowone bigger or more influencial. In the mid eighties Slayer, very much influenced by Mercyful Fate and Venom, came along and mastered Speed/Satanic/Death Metal and fostered a whole new generation of Metal fans. I know that King Diamond/Mercyful Fate have put out many recordings since Melissa, but in my humble opinion the first two records were and still are the best.