This is one of those records the King churned out to get of the hook at Roadrunner Records where he was stuck with a 3 record deal (the other two being a live album and "Return of the Vampire" a collection of rare and unreleased tracks).

Track listing:

Mercyful Fate:
1. "Doomed by the Living Dead"
2. "A Corpse without Soul"
3. "Evil"
4. "Curse of the Pharaohs"
5. "A Dangerous Meeting"
6. "Gypsy"
7. "Come to the Sabbath"

King Diamond:
8. "The Candle"
9. "Charon"
10. "Halloween"
11. "No Presents for Christmas"
12. "Arrival"
13. "Abigail"
14. "Welcome Home"
15. "Sleepless Nights"
16. "Eye of the Witch"

This so called best of CD contains tracks from "The Beginning" track 1-2, "Melissa" 3-4, "Don't Break the Oath" 5-7, "Fatal Portrait" 8-10, "Abigail" 12-13, "Them" 14, "Conspiracy" 15 and "The Eye" 16. The only rarity being "No Presents for Christmas" which appeared on a vinyl-single and on the CD "Dark Sides" a collection of B-sides and CD-bonus tracks. I think "No Presents for Christmas" later was included on one of the ordinary King Diamond CD:s when they was later re-released with loads of rare bonus-tracks on each one of them, thus taking away the only meaningful aspect of owning this particular release. The tracks chosen here are very good but if you own the majority of the MF/KD releases (like me) it's a total waste of money apart from the thick informative booklet which accompanies the CD. I bought this when it came out in 1992 if that strengthens my defence and my collection was then incomplete. Also with the King Diamond releases being concept albums the tracks suffer from being taken out of their context lyrically. But Kings purpose with this album, that I mentioned initially, explains a lot of its flaws. For the FANATIC ONLY!

© 2001 herr nebelwerfer