Calling all fun-loving nuns and
corpses without souls…
Black Funeral: Into the Coven
with Mercyful Fate
is 275 pages of paranormal
progressive power metal rendered in
my usual format, namely every song
discussed, one chapter per album,
with tipped-in sections of colour
photography. You’ve all been very
kind in making my recent books like
this on Sabbath, Maiden and Priest
sell pretty damn good, so this one
is very much a style match to those
too, with lots of detail and trivia
nugget-mining not found amongst the
frankly pretty scant material out
there on this band.
As the back cover sez…
The heavy metal love for Mercyful
Fate and King Diamond runs deep and
blood-red.
Now Martin Popoff has unleashed upon
this wicked world the first book
celebrating this devilish, Danish
phenomenon, specifically the root
band of it all, Mercyful Fate.
To be sure, any self-respecting fan
knows Melissa and Don’t Break the
Oath, but as with most of his 80+
books, Martin has devised an
ulterior motive, and that is the
proselytizing upon the good graces
of each and every Mercyful Fate
reunion album from 1993 through to
the band being cast into the fiery
pits of hell in the year of our Lord
1999.
Indeed, the classics stand as two
cornerstones of superbly crafted
black metal madness, but In the
Shadows, Time, Into the Unknown,
Dead Again and most pertinently 9,
are all records blessed with the
same sweat ethic and ungodly
performance and production standards
King applies to anything he does.
It’s time to join the coveted coven
and enter the pentatonic pentagram
and celebrate with Popoff this
superlative catalogue of top-shelf
heavy metal beloved by Metallica and
fans the world over as arguably the
only suite of songs as creatively
intense as those of Judas Priest
circa ’76 through ’79. Believe
it—the good King and Michael and
Hank knew what they were doing. Come
read how the three of them executed
fully the master plan that made this
band one for the most discerning of
connoisseurs.
This book is now completely sold
out!
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