The story of King Diamond's 11th album is set in 18th century Budapest, Hungary. The puppet show takes place on Christmas. A weird puppet show... I won't tell you no more about the details, but the story is King's goriest yet. And another good one.

King Diamond fans are once again happy with a new album. A new, very good album. 'The Puppet Master' sounds like a heavy metal record should sound, not flat as many of the predecessors (esp. in the 1990s). Otherwise you should know how King Diamond sounds. Horror-tinged heavy metal is the man's thing. The songs vary from slower, doomier atmosphere to faster, still atmospheric, but truly well rolling metal songs. Generally song writing has more 'Abigail' (1987) in it than any King Diamond album had during 1990s. Yes, it is very playful indeed. Guitarist Andy La Rocque (heck, what fantastic, memorable solos again, with Mike Wead) and Mr. Diamond have once again succeeded to spice up their good ol' heavy metal with various things, so much this sounds actually even more unique than King's album usually tend to sound. More prog can be heard a couple of songs, nice loan of 'The Little Drummer Boy' on 'Christmas', different beats (Matt Thompson on drums and Hal Patino playing bass) and simply a lot of variety without losing the red thread. Eastern melody spotted on 'Darkness', by the way. The whole album is wonderfully composed, it isn't easy to lift a song above other.

'The Puppet Master' shows how versatile vocalist Mr. Diamond can be. He does more of normal singing on this one. Of course his trademark high pitched falsetto singing is still in a good use. As usually it goes from nice effect to a bit funny ones. At least the man has his own style. This time female vocals are really female ones. Livia Zira has an individual voice and she's nice to listen to. On a bonus DVD, Mr. Diamond tells the story of the album in a candlelight, grinning like a madman. There's nothing more on this DVD, though. A bit of opportunity wasted, I think, and only most devoted King fans must have this DVD version. Digipak look a bit boring with a lot of glossy stuff, but booklet's art is good with nice band member portraits and magickal symbols and such.

I guess King Diamond's metal is a thing one likes or doesn't like. 'The Puppet Master' has more (dark) soul than any King Diamond album since 'Voodoo' from 1998. And before that we must go to year 1990 and 'The Eye', if soul is what you want. It took quite a lot playing to find out how good the album is. Nothing felt too catchy at first, but now it's all in my spine. Yeah, King Diamond is the master of his craft! This is like a Dario Argento movie in musical vein.

Rating: 8+ (out of 10) ratings explained

Reviewed by Lane
01/03/2004 17:03