Melissa (Mercyful Fate album)
| Melissa | ||||
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Original LP cover art. In later pressings the orange colour is replaced with red.
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| Studio album by Mercyful Fate | ||||
| Released | 30 October 1983 | |||
| Recorded | July 1983 | |||
| Studio | Easy Sound Recording, Copenhagen, Denmark | |||
| Genre | ||||
| Length | 40:09 | |||
| Label |
Roadrunner (Europe) Music for Nations (UK) Megaforce (USA) |
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| Producer | Henrik Lund | |||
| Mercyful Fate chronology | ||||
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| Singles from Melissa | ||||
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| Professional ratings | |
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| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| AllMusic |   |
| Collector's Guide to Heavy Metal | 9/10 |
| Metal Forces | 9/10 |
| Sputnikmusic | 5/5 |
Melissa is the debut studio album by Danish heavy metal band Mercyful Fate, released on 30 October 1983. It was the first album released by Roadrunner Records. This was also the first Mercyful Fate effort to get an official release in the United States through Megaforce Records, as the self-titled EP was a highly sought after import, and the BBC sessions were only available on bootleg tapes.
In 2005, Roadrunner Records re-released this album with several bonus tracks and a bonus DVD. Music is credited to Hank Shermann and lyrics to King Diamond.
Some of the material on the album had its roots in demos recorded when the musicians were members of the underground bands Black Rose and Brats: "Curse of the Pharaohs", which was originally titled "Night Riders" on an old Brats demo, was retitled after King Diamond changed the lyrics originally written by the Brats bassist; "Love Criminals", actually the first song Mercyful Fate ever wrote, was renamed "Into the Coven", which was originally meant to be the title of the album too. The album contains also "Satan's Fall" which, as Michael Denner recalls, took ages to learn and elicited an eerie feeling the few times he heard it. Hank Shermann wrote the music for this song, which was composed during many sleepless nights on his unplugged guitar in his living room. The band kept rehearsing the song for a long time in its unfinished form, as Shermann continuously added new parts. According to Denner, there are about sixteen different riffs in "Satan's Fall", which was the band's longest song with a running time over 11 minutes, until the band released Dead Again, on which the title track is 13 minutes long.
On 18 July 1983, Mercyful Fate started recording at Easy Sounds Studios in Copenhagen with producer Henrik Lund, who was the co-owner of the studio along with his brother. The band spent 13 days in the studio to record and mix the album. The songs had been thoroughly arranged and rehearsed in advance to make the most of the limited time. Lund, who had never produced a metal band before, mixed the album on his own, but accepted comments from the musicians on his different takes. The band found this procedure very irritating but, in retrospect, Diamond understands "that he didn't want a bunch of amateurs hanging over his shoulder." At that time, the label asked the band to do a cover song, so the band recorded Led Zeppelin's "Immigrant Song". The band skipped it because they felt it did not fit very well with the lyrics and feel of the album. According to Shermann, Diamond's performance was very surprising, because he sounded very close to Robert Plant's original vocals.
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