I loved collecting the silver label Megaforce and green label Combat records. I've knocked off a number of the bigger ones, but Mercyful Fate has always felt a bit intimidating to chase. Having the chance to pick of both of them from Tim's collection was too good to pass up.
The first Mercyful Fate album, Melissa, was originally released on Roadrunner over in Europe, but got a US release through Megaforce here in the States. It was the third Megaforce album release and has those great and collectible silver labels. I now have the the first eight Megaforce albums with the silver labels, which includes some heavy hitters like Anthrax, Exciter, Raven and the first two Metallica albums... so I'm feeling really good about adding this Mercyful Fate record to the collection.
I sometimes forget, or overlook, these Mercyful Fate records. I love King Diamond's vocals here, but I tend to reach for bands that are a bit more gritty in their sound when I want to listen to that early 80's thrash sound. Picking up these two records has reminded me just how great they are.
The second Mercyful Fate album, Don't Break The Oath, also saw a Roadrunner release over in Europe, but this time Combat handled the US pressing. Combat didn't really have an impressive track record up to this point, with releases from Oz, TKO and Helstar, so I imagine getting the rights to release this Mercyful Fate record was a huge win for the label, and maybe helped them land bands like Megadeth and Slayer soon after.
Now that I have these two albums, it kind of makes me want to finally put up the money it would take to grab the first Mercyful Fate EP. That's going to be an expensive move, so we will see when I can pull that off.
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