“Grandma!!!!!!” I don’t know if there’s a more apt intro for this post, and I don’t know if there’s a better, more hilarious yet awesome intro to a metal song ever. With a new guitarist and bass player in tow replacing his former Mercyful Fate bandmates, King Diamond crafted if not an album for the ages in “Them”, then at least a song for the ages in the immortal (and thankfully captured in video form) “Welcome Home”. This was my first exposure to King Diamond as a kid, my first purchase of his on CD, and then my first purchase when I moved to vinyl. Does it hold up, especially in t he light of having just digested at length both Fatal Portrait and Abigail? Time to find out…

One thing not in the album’s favor is the production: it’s thin and compressed to the point where the guitars begin to lose their bite and separation in the mix, and there’s some silly reverb on the drums robbing them of the weight you can tell Mickey Dee is putting behind them. The story, now fabricated from King’s own life, inserts him as a young child whose diabolical grandmother has returned home after time in an asylum. Evil spookiness ensures. The spook factor kicks in immediately on the opening “Out From the Asylum” which prologues the story accompanied by haunted keyboards. It’s a brief intro, and then we’re off and running with “Welcome Home” kicking all sorts of ass. Despite the thin production it’s an all timer of a riff, made even mightier by King’s piercing screech for his grandma. New guitarist Pete Blakk takes the first solo and it’s solid, although I’m already missing Michael Denner. When la Rocque’s solo kicks in the song definitely perks up, and Diamond’s falsetto continues to be a source of amazement.

The progressive tendencies of the band are back in stronger force, too. There are almost as many riffs in a song here as there are on a Metallica album with little of that band’s tendency toward bloat, and “The Invisible Guests” might even be better than “Welcome Home”, despite lacking screeching cries for Grandma. Instead we get more aggression in the attack, more solos than entire albums contain, more of King’s voice sinking to nasty levels. And dare I say some “Wake Up Dead” Megadeth riffage in the close? The innocuously named “Tea” hides the depth to which this song sinks, with its chiming chords in the chorus followed by the thud of guitars that sound like modern doom metal. Things get more brisk during the solos and Blakk, who would remain through 1990’s The Eye really begins to acquit himself nicely during his breaks. Side A closes with “Mother’s Getting Weaker” and while I admire the adherence to the concept, song titles like this would have been really hard to break back in the day. With a rare solo music credit to Andy la Rocque, it’s almost a great rocker, taking classic ideas from both Mercyful Fate and King Diamond but getting diluted by a lackluster chorus, a surprise considering how strong King’s penchant for crafting a hook is.

Continuing the trend of silly titles, Side B opens with “Bye, Bye, Missy” referring to King’s sister who sees the horror of what Grandma is and meets a grisly end. Thankfully the music meets the demands of the narrative – it’s a gnarly, heavy affair, opting for power over speed. It’s also not a complete wall of noise, allowing some space to come in and beef the track up even more. A quick note to other bands: sometimes more is less, you know? But not so much less you don’t end your song. I have no idea what the point is of the abrupt ending here, unless its to signify Missy’s demise. It doesn’t work, and just feels disjointed as it heads into “A Broken Spell” again with music solely by la Rocque. It’s a solid late sequenced track for “Them”, although at this point I’m beginning to really think that despite being my first King Diamond, it might now be my least favorite of the three records. The song is partially saved in the second half: King is great at teasing out a surprise or two late in the songwriting. I personally think “The Accusation Chair” is a great title, and the harmonized guitars and the slower pace gives this a fresh perceptive lacking on the past few songs. Heading to the end of “Them” one of the surprises is how little bassist Hal Patino feels integrated into the songs. I guess he’s providing the low frequencies, but it’s barely noticeable, and missed from Hansen’s more melodic explorations on the previous two records. Also another abrupt ending. For shame, King Diamond…

The final three tracks are made up of two short pieces sandwiching the main song. “Them” the song is a brief interlude acting as prelude to the storm of “Twilight Symphony” which feels like a return to the successful form of the earlier tracks. The lyrics are very, very focused on completing the story, but the music? Simply killer, and we finally hear Patino’s bass! I particularly like the music preceding Blakk’s solo; again there’s that distinct Megadeth vibe permeating the riffs. Finally “Coming Home” brings up back to the theatrics of the opening prologue, and I honestly think this is an instance where the theatrics wore a little thin for me, taking too much focus away from laying some some righteous progressive heavy metal. It doesn’t ruin “Them” for me, but it’s the one of the three that shows its age the most, and while I’m happy to have given it its place on this site, I don’t know when I’ll return to it in full.