Released: June 15, 1999
Mercyful Fate were never supposed to sound normal.
That’s the point. The riffs twist. King Diamond shrieks, whispers, howls, and turns every line into theater. The songs feel like old horror stories being dragged through heavy metal. When this band works, it does not sound evil in a generic way. It sounds strange.
That is what makes 9 so interesting.
The question is simple: what happens when a legendary band stops trying to expand the myth and just makes it mean again?
That is where the album lands.
By 1999, Mercyful Fate were not the same band that made Melissa or Don’t Break the Oath. They could not be. Too much time had passed. The lineup had changed. Metal had changed. Their influence had already spread everywhere. Black metal, thrash, death metal, power metal—half the underground had taken something from them.
So 9 does not work by pretending it is 1984 again.
It works by sounding sharper, colder, and more direct.
“Last Rites” opens with that familiar Mercyful Fate weirdness, but it does not wander. The riffing is tight. The song moves with purpose. Hank Shermann still has that gift for making a riff feel crooked without losing the hook, and Mike Wead fits the later version of the band well. The guitars sound less like old haunted-house metal and more like something with teeth showing.
“Church of Saint Anne” is where the album really shows its shape. The song has that classic Mercyful Fate storytelling feel, but the band play it with more muscle. King is still King, of course. He sounds like three different characters arguing inside the same room. But the music underneath him is heavier than people sometimes remember. It is not just atmosphere. The riffs do work.
That is the thing with 9.
The album features the return of evil themes, but it is not solely focused on Satanic theater. It is about control. The songs are shorter. The hooks are cleaner. The band sound less interested in maze-building and more interested in putting the knife in quickly.
“Sold My Soul” has one of the best examples of that. It is simple by Mercyful Fate standards, but it works because the mood is right. King does not need to over-explain anything. The title already tells you the deal. The band just gives him a dark groove and lets him sell the bad decision.
“Burn in Hell” is even more direct. That title could be ridiculous in the wrong hands. With Mercyful Fate, it feels like business as usual. The song moves with that late-era bite, less ornate than the classic albums but still unmistakably theirs. Nobody else writes heavy metal that feels this theatrical and nasty at the same time.
“The Grave” gives the album some of its best atmosphere. It slows things down enough to let the horror breathe, but it does not turn soft. That matters because Mercyful Fate are at their best when the story and the riff meet in the middle. Too much story, and it gets campy. Too much riff, and it risks sounding like any other metal band. Here, the balance holds.
“Insane” and “Kiss the Demon” keep the record moving with less ceremony. That is part of why 9 feels different from the earlier reunion albums. It does not feel like the band is trying to prove how many rooms are in the mansion. It feels like they locked a few doors and made the hallway darker.
That is a good choice.
The title track closes the album in a way that feels bigger without getting bloated. Kol Marshall’s keyboards add just enough extra shadow, and King leans into the drama without making it feel like a separate universe. It is still Mercyful Fate, but stripped down to the core pieces: voice, riff, occult mood, and that strange feeling that the song is grinning at you from the dark.
9 also hits differently because it became the last Mercyful Fate studio album before the long silence. That gives it a weird final-chapter feeling now, even if it was not meant that way. It does not sound like a grand goodbye. It sounds like the band tightening its grip one more time.
So what happens when a legendary band stops trying to expand the myth and just makes it mean again?
You get 9.
Not Mercyful Fate chasing their own past.
Mercyful Fate cutting the candles lower, locking the door, and letting the old darkness speak plainly.
Written by Rob Joncas for DeadNoteMedia. Artist information and music courtesy of the band. © 2026 DeadNoteMedia. All rights reserved.
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