King Diamond - The Puppet Master

"Now, let the show begin!"

When it comes to concept albums, one must thread a careful line. Not so much in whether or not does story make sense (although Rhapsody proved it certainly adds to the charm) but rather in how well the music conveys the sense of plot progression. In a sense, concept album is not much different from the opera. Focus is not so much on the acting and story, but rather in how well the music can convey the emotion.

A lot of concept albums, while they certainly can be good musically, also tend to fall into trap of forsaking the story for the sake of music, or sometimes even in a worse fashion, sacrificing music for the story. The amount of concept albums I consider masterpieces would lead you to believe that it's an inherently superior form and that all musicians should do it. That's when I'd say that you suffer from survivorship bias and need to re-evaluate, because for every good concept album, there's about a dozen that fucking fail.

Which brings me to today's album, "The Puppet Master". Before you conclude, no this is not a failure of a concept album, neither in story and music. In fact I would like to use it, and it's predecessors to illustrate the above point.

Few albums preceeding this were, while not bad, exceedingly mediocre. Stories were standard B-movie cliches, like the Dan Brown-esque conspiracy about origins of Christianity, the cliche haunted graveyard in "Vodoo" or, dear me, the absolutely unnecesary sequel to one of King's best works. Music itself was also nothing to write about, bar few absolute bangers like first few songs on "Abigail II". But all signs were pointing towards King running out of ideas, a creative abdication if you will.

Then, something changed in 2003. King seemed to have replaced interest in creepy hauntings, conspiracy theories and shock purely for shock value, for something far more personal and intimate. "The Puppet Master" is not a story about ghosts, ancient curses and buried bodies of major religious figures in monasteries in middle of fucking nowhere, it's a story about being held captive and being subjected to horrifying occult rituals and experiment, all for the purpose of turning you into a dancing puppet. And it's all wonderfully pieced together with what is essentially a tragic love story.

I won't spoil you the rest of the story, but if you want to know it beforehand without having to read the lyrics sheet, you're in luck. There's a video on special edition CDs of "The Puppet Master" where King himself narrates the story, and let me tell you right now, man is one hell of a narrator too. However, now we have to dig into the meat of the album. The music itself.

King Diamond narrates the story of "The Puppet Master"

It has never sounded this dark and evil, even in previous works like "The Conspiracy" and "The Eye". While there are some absolutely infectious, energetic bangers such as "Magic", quite a lot of these songs are drenched in a claustrophobic, creepy atmosphere that is neatly put together by King's voice, Andy LaRoque's still stellar guitar work and solos and of course the healthy but still not overdone use of keyboards. If there's a simple term to explain the atmoshpere, basically imagine being trapped in a gothic, Frankenstein-esque cellar with an occult maniac and his wife while outside there's a Christmas market going on.

This is also more in line with King's power metal sensibilites of his early work, although there's always an almost carnival-like rhytm going underneath it all, like in "Blue Eyes", or perhaps a classic Christmas carol gets quoted like in "Christmas", but true standouts would be "Magic" and "So Sad", the first one for being an explosive, infectious number with absolutely sick solos by Andy LaRoque, and the second one for being an effective closer, courtesy of an effective counterplay between King Diamond and the guest female vocalist.

Since we're in the time around Christmas, and if you want to absolutely ruin your basic aunt who only can conceive of "Last Christmas" and "All I Want For Christmas" as Christmas songs, you could do well to play this to completely ruin the Holiday spirit if it gets to that point. Otherwise just listen to it because, along with "The Conspiracy" and "The Eye", it's pretty much the best work in King's discography