{"id":973405,"date":"2019-11-08T09:12:04","date_gmt":"2019-11-08T16:12:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/?p=909824"},"modified":"2019-11-08T09:12:04","modified_gmt":"2019-11-08T16:12:04","slug":"song-you-need-to-know-king-diamonds-masquerade-of-madness-is-a-crushing-paean-to-insanity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kfmu\/music-news\/song-you-need-to-know-king-diamonds-masquerade-of-madness-is-a-crushing-paean-to-insanity\/","title":{"rendered":"Song You Need to Know: King Diamond\u2019s \u2018Masquerade of Madness\u2019 Is a Crushing Paean to Insanity"},"content":{"rendered":"
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It\u2019s been 12 years since everybody\u2019s favorite corpse-painted Danish vampire, King Diamond<\/a>, last rose from his crypt with new music and nine since a series of heart attacks sidelined him from touring for a few years. Now that he\u2019s gotten some fresh blood and regained his sea legs, he\u2019s back to his old shrieky self and has recorded a new ripper, \u201cMasquerade of Madness,\u201d which will appear on his new LP, The Institute<\/em>, due next year.<\/p>\n

The track has all the hallmarks of Classic King Diamond: plodding riffs (you know, in a good way), gothic synth lines, an acrobatic Andy LaRocque solo, a chorus with perfectly concise lyrics (\u201cMasquerade of madness\/masquerade of sadness\u201d), and, of course, King\u2019s ceiling-scratching screeches. The single\u2019s cover art shows a young woman (\u201ca girl in misery,\u201d as King growls), ostensibly in an insane asylum, wearing some kind of iron mask that \u2014 dramatic pause<\/em> \u2014 somehow perfectly accommodates her pigtails. Diehard Diamond fans know that the art will somehow tie into a lofty concept-album plot about a tortured young woman whom, we hope, will get her revenge, but for now it just adds to the eeriness (and the campiness) of it all.<\/p>\n

After all, the balance of camp and meaty riffs has always been the secret to a good King Diamond record. Ever since his first band, Mercyful Fate, split in the mid-Eighties, King has been at his best with songs like \u201cHalloween\u201d and \u201cBlack Horsemen,\u201d which he sang with a forked-tongue in cheek. His last few records were a little too goofy (the cover art and title for his last album, 2007\u2019s Give Me Your Soul \u2026 Please<\/em> were way too over-the-top) but \u201cMasquerade of Madness\u201d is just crazy enough to make you want to suspend disbelief. Whether it was his health issues or the fact that he has realized he\u2019s now 63 years undead and needs to put himself back out there, King Diamond has set up The Institute <\/em>properly with \u201cMasquerade of Madness\u201d as a potentially fierce comeback album. Long live the King!<\/p>\n

Find a playlist of all of our recent Songs You Need to Know selections on Spotify<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

via:: Rolling Stone<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s been 12 years since everybody\u2019s favorite corpse-painted Danish vampire, King Diamond, last rose from his crypt with new music and nine since a series of heart attacks sidelined him from touring for a few years. Now that he\u2019s gotten some fresh blood and regained his sea legs, he\u2019s back to his old shrieky self […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[76],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-973405","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-music-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-13 07:15:51","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KFMU Solar Powered Radio","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kfmu","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kfmu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/973405","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kfmu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kfmu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kfmu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kfmu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=973405"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kfmu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/973405\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kfmu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=973405"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kfmu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=973405"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kfmu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=973405"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}