Thursday, November 20, 2008

Mercyful Fate


"...back in the day....." & "..... the metal scene back in the '80s...." You know they are two of the most repetitive sound bytes that come out of my mouth and I know I shouldn't live in the past but as Tom Araya said a few weeks back .... "there really aren't that many bands around these days that are good......" 

I always find myself going back to the old days and listening to classic bands from the '80's and I am not talking about Winger, Stryper or Warrant, I am talking about Mercyful Fate, Diamond Head, early Maiden, Motorhead etc etc etc...... 

I try to come up with new bands that have put out recent releases and it becomes apparent that they are not that new after all..... Machine Head's last album The Blackening was sick but they have been around for along time and what about Onslaught's 2006 release Killing Peace... Holy Shit it was amazing .... but Onslaught hit the scene back in 1985 with Power From Hell and 1986's metal gem The Force. The Blackening and  Killing Peace are the only releases I can think of that stand out as great recordings from the past 2 years ...... if you know different tell me.

What happened ? There used to be so much talent and now it is rare to find anything above average. Just listen to the first three Mercyful Fate releases and admit that writing like that will be hard to find unless you listen to the originators.  At least Denner and Sherman wrote together in Force of Evil and hopefully will be writing together again.. you can hear that magic is still there .......

Here is a picture I never saw until today from Mercyful Fate pre Satan days.... notice that King has right side up crosses ........ ahh how the old days were so perfect ... 

STAY HEAVY 


2 comments:

Ray Van Horn, Jr. said...

Of course I'm as old school as they come but there's some cool stuff going on beneath the crap, just for instance. A lot of rough out there but there's plenty of diamonds to be excavated.

Tania Sk said...

Sweeet picture of Mercyful Fate. Love it.