The Graveyard

The Graveyard is the band's seventh studio album, made by the same five musicians as The Spider's Lullabye and again co-produced and engineered by Tim Kimsey. It was recorded and mixed at the Dallas Sound Lab in Dallas, Texas, between March and May 1996, apart from the keyboards on "Whispers", which were recorded at Los Angered Recording in Gothenburg, Sweden. King Diamond, Andy La Rocque and Kimsey produced it; King Diamond and Kimsey mixed it, with Sterling Winfield and Troy Scheer assisting on the engineering, and Howie Weinberg mastered it at Masterdisk. The line-up is King Diamond on vocals and keyboards, La Rocque and Herb Simonsen on guitars, Chris Estes on bass and Darrin Anthony on drums. King Diamond wrote all the lyrics. La Rocque wrote the music of "Black Hill Sanitarium", "Heads on the Wall", "Whispers", "Meet Me at Midnight" and "Lucy Forever", and King Diamond the other nine songs. The whole album tells one story. Its narrator once worked for the town's mayor, McKenzie; when he reported the mayor's abuse of his own daughter, Lucy, the mayor turned the accusation against him and had him committed to Black Hill Sanitarium. Years later he escapes, hides in the local graveyard and plans his revenge on the mayor, drawing Lucy into it, while a rumour that the soul of someone beheaded in a graveyard lives on in the head becomes the key to the ending. Massacre Records released the album in Europe in September 1996, and Metal Blade Records released it in the United States. It reached No. 23 on the official Finnish chart.