Fatal Portrait

After Mercyful Fate came apart, King Diamond carried on with guitarist Michael Denner and bassist Timi Hansen, and the new band took his name; the young Swedish drummer Mikkey Dee joined them. In its 1988 notes Roadrunner Records presented the 12-inch single "No Presents for Christmas", released in December 1985, as the first King Diamond record after Mercyful Fate, and this debut album followed. It was recorded and mixed at Sound Track Studio in Copenhagen in July and August 1985, produced by King Diamond and Rune Höyer, with Denner as assistant producer and Roberto Falcao as engineer. The second guitarist arrived in the middle of the sessions. Andy La Rocque has said that about two weeks in, when things were not working out in the studio with the guitarist the band had, Dee, with whom he had played in a band in Gothenburg, called him down to Copenhagen. He auditioned in the studio by playing the solo on "Dressed in White" and was in the band that same afternoon; the songs were already written and partly recorded, so his solos are all he plays on the album. The booklet credits King Diamond with lead and backing vocals and all the guitars on "Voices from the Past", Denner and La Rocque with lead guitar, Hansen with bass and Dee with drums. King Diamond wrote every song, three of them, "Charon", "Halloween" and "Haunted", together with Denner. The LP (RR 9721) has nine tracks; the CD (RR 34 9721) adds "The Lake", recorded at the same sessions and also issued on the limited Halloween picture disc in September 1986. The artwork is credited to Dzyan, Thomas Holm and Torbjörn Jörgensen. Dee later recalled that on tour with this album the band played a Chicago theatre with 1,300 seats. King Diamond has said that Metal Blade Records acquired the old catalogue from Warner, and that the label's CD and LP reissues of April 2020 set out to keep the dynamics of the original release.