Give Me Your Soul...Please

If there is one artist whose releases I have always looked forward to hearing, it's King Diamond. Whether with Mercyful Fate or as a solo artist, King Diamond has been delivering quality material for over twenty years now. After a four year hiatus, the Stephen King of theatrical horror metal has returned to add another chapter to his illustrious catalog. Give Me Your Soul...Please is a conceptual horror masterpiece inspired by occult themes, experiences from King Diamond's personal life and afterlife experiences as well as King's creative and dark imagination. "It's a horror murder mystery story mixed with reality from beginning to end" as King describes. Give Me Your Soul...Please is about a brother and sister who are viciously murdered by their father. The siblings are trapped in the spirit world, waiting to get to the other side, but which side will they end up on? The powers that dictate the acceptance of souls wrongly accuse the little boy of committing suicide and that he should go to Hell, while his sister has been accepted to Heaven. The sister devises a plan to get her brother into Heaven by stealing an innocent soul, hence the albums title. King Diamond has always seen the music of Mercyful Fate as more guitar oriented while his solo material includes more keyboards and is more conceptual in nature lyrically. Being the fate of Mercyful Fate is unknown, it seems that King Diamond has used more of the Mercyful Fate traits on Give Me Your Soul...Please, but the music has not lost it's theatrical feel despite the minimal use of keyboards. There is alot of speedy double bass drumming used and the songs are very guitar driven. The solos and riffs from Mike Wead and Andy Larocque are flashy and quite brilliant. The technique in their playing is filled with melody, speed and aggression. The production is pretty good and the mixed well to the point that all the instruments and arrangements can be heard clearly. King Diamond mixes things up with his schizophrenic vocals; from the low, demonic voices to his normal range and falsetto shrieks. The vocals are clear, much more intricate and not as compressed like on past releases. He does not seem to over do the high stuff as much either. And King Diamond once again incorporates the talents of female vocalist Livia Zita on a few tracks. As for the arrangements, there are cellos, a harpsichord and a creepy sounding organ used to help provide an atmosphere of horror! The overall song structures are put together well. It seems that King Diamond really took his time in making sure he was satisfied with the final product before releasing it. And as for the cover, it's the best King Diamond one yet! The rest of the review will discuss the story in detail based on my interpretation of the lyrics. If you don't wish to know what happens, I suggest you read another review! The main cast of characters that make up Give Me Your Soul...Please are King and his black cat Magic, The beautiful house on Never Ending Hill, the little girl in the bloody dress and her dead little brother, The Dark, The Floating Head Woman, Shapes of Black and YOU! The album starts off with The Dead. On this track, the two siblings are now in their spirit state after being murdered. The little brother still doesn't realize what has happened and asks his sister where they are. She tells him that they are dead. The little brother isn't sure what THEY are going to do with him and asks if he is going to Hell. The sister tells him that is what THEY said because THEY feel the little boy committed suicide, which is a sin and only a soul free of sin can get into Heaven. The sister tells her little brother that she will get him another soul. She hears an organ playing from a house nearby and decides to go there. The little brother warns her not to let anyone see her in her bloody dress. The little girl sets her sights on the house on Never Ending Hill, a place where time is never ever standing still. There lives King, whose soul she will try to take. The house sits near Devil Lake, where King's black cat Magic chases butterflies and birds can be heard singing in the Old Oak Tree. But this tranquil setting is about to come to an end as The Darkness starts to descend. As Darkness falls, King gets the feeling that someone is watching him. On the track, Is Anybody Here?, he starts to question his own sanity. King hears a little voice crying "help me, help me!" and asks himself "What is it I hear?" He feels that it's all in his head because there is only himself and his cat Magic in the house. On Black of Night, the house is pitch black and King tries to light the chandelier. He hears little footsteps coming from the hallway as the lights on the chandelier start to flicker and die out. King cannot see anything, yet his cat senses something. King lights a candle to find his way around the house. Then something hits him on the head. Mirror Mirror describes the initial encounter King has with the little girl. He is filled with fear by the presence he senses. King follows the sound of the little footsteps in the hallway. He holds a candle to the mirror on the wall but cannot see himself or the hallway he is in, only a little girl in a bloody dress standing in the cellar down below. King then questions why the little girl is here, why her hands are full of blood and if she is looking for him. There is a bloody smear on the wall and a crucifix hanging upside down. Through the mirror blood is dripping on the floor. King gets his answer on The Cellar. After seeing the girl in the cellar through the mirror, he decides to go down there to see if the little girl is actually there. It is very dark but he can see a trail of blood. King starts to see a halo of light in the dark yet his vision is blocked by many "little black wings", bats I presume. He can hear her breathing and wheezing and then she points her little finger at him saying, "mine, mine, mine, mine, give me your soul please". The piercing eyes of the little girl burn into his mind. He turns around to try and leave the cellar but he falls down. King feels darkness start to overcome him. The candle in his hand doesn't burn anymore. He barley makes it out of the cellar. As King escapes the cellar, fatigue sets in and he falls down in the hallway. King hears voices in the darkness saying "go to sleep and I, I will tell you why I'm here". He's not sure if he is dreaming or still awake. He starts to see pictures of the little girl, Pictures In Red. Give Me Your Soul is probably the most important track on the album as it really explains in detail how the siblings became spirits and why the little girl is on a crusade to save her brother's soul. King is in a state between sleep and consciousness. He thinks he has seen the little girl before. (He already has seen her, but only in her bloody dress and he does not realize she is the same person at that particular moment in time). She is playing with a boy in the cellar. He sees them having fun but then the father, in a rage, comes in screaming and yelling. The father has an axe in his hand and strikes the little boy in the head. At this point King believes this is a dream from below. He sees thirteen judges on a bench accusing the boy of being a suicide and that he will be sent to Hell. Then he sees the Father squeezing the neck of the little girl. She is dressed in blood but the blood is not hers and the Father has a hole in his head! Hmmmmm. Could it be that the Father was the one that committed suicide and THEM confused him with the little brother? At this point King doesn't know what's real. He is still on the floor in the hallway and tries to light candles in order to keep The Dark out. The nightmares inside his mind are starting to turn real. He goes to the sink to splash some water on his face to try and snap himself back into reality. As the sink fills with water, he sees a Floating Head Woman watching him. Then he feels two strong hands around his neck, forcing him under the water. The skin on King starts to slowly turn blue on Cold As Ice, no thanks to the hands that tried to drown him. The candles start to loose their flame. Darkness and shadows slowly take over. The Dark is moving and there are spirits waiting in his room, growing stronger. King's breathing begins to slow down. Shapes of Black consume what little light is left in the house. They are all around and The Darkness provides a vehicle through which the other side enters into King's life. The Shapes of Black enable King to see THEM; human shapes made from The Dark. The only light left in the house is that from the moon, which enables King to see The Girl In The Bloody Dress. She has crossed over from the other side. King feels the girls eyes in his soul, trying to find something deep within his mind, like what he has done with his life. The girl continues to beg for his soul. She carry's the Devil's mark. She moves closer and closer to King, putting her hands on his. They are full of her brother's blood. King claims that his soul is full of sin. He urges the girl to leave and find a soul without sin before the dawn comes back. In Moving On, the little girl feels that she has let her brother down. The only way her brother can get to Heaven is if she can find a soul free of sin. King convinces the little girl that there is still time to find a soul free of sin and that she should move on to another house. The little girl says that she will go to THIS house before the dawn. THIS is where YOU, the listener, takes part in the story! The story is left open ended so I can't help but feel that there will be a sequel of some kind. Just how much time is left for the little girl to help save her brother from Hell? Overall, I like the storyline but found a few things a bit confusing, like what was with the Floating Woman Head and how did the Father get a hole in his head? Also, if the blood on the hands of the little girl is not hers, than whose is it? Her brother's? Her Father's? While King Diamond feels this his strongest and best album to date, I'd have to disagree. It is a solid effort but I do not feel it his best in my opinion. It's a cool storyline but musically it is not as good as albums like Conspiracy, Abigail, The Eye, Them or even Puppet Master. I'd say it falls in between these albums and ones like Fatal Portrait, Voodoo, Abigail II, The Spider's Lullaby and House of God. Give Me Your Soul...Please is still a well worthy purchase for any fan of King Diamond or even Mercyful Fate!