Hall of the Mountain King

Hall of the Mountain King, the fourth album, came out on Atlantic in 1987 (the LP is 81775-1). The old official site gives September and Germany's Rock Hard the 28th, but the American radio trade papers The Hard Report and FMQB show stations already playing it in late August. The official site tells how, with the previous record having failed to connect and the band close to splitting up, Atlantic asked the producer Paul O'Neill to help; he flew to Florida to see them play and began writing with the Oliva brothers. It was the first of eight albums they made with him. It was recorded and mixed at the Record Plant in New York with James A. Ball engineering, and it began the long collaboration with Bob Kinkel, who added keyboards. The instrumental "Prelude to Madness" is Grieg's "In the Hall of the Mountain King" from Peer Gynt played the band's way, an idea of O'Neill's according to the old official FAQ. It was the band's first instrumental, and Trans-Siberian Orchestra later recorded it again as "The Mountain", as Prog magazine noted. The voice trading lines with Jon at the end of "Strange Wings" is Ray Gillen of Badlands. The credits call Jon "The Grit", Criss "The Crunch", Steve "The Cannons" and Johnny Lee "The Thunder". The title song's video was the band's first, as the old official timeline records, and it was played often on MTV's Headbangers Ball. The album entered the Billboard 200 on the chart of 10 October 1987, climbed to number 116 on 30 January 1988 and stayed 23 weeks, the band's best placing there. On the tour they played American arenas with Dio and Megadeth, and Chris Caffery joined as a touring guitarist. East West Japan issued the Japanese edition on 10 March 1992 (AMCY-389). The running order here is the original's as printed.