The Graveyard

Infobox Album | Name = The Graveyard
Type = studio
Artist = King Diamond


Released = September 30 1996
Recorded = March-May 1996
Genre = Heavy metal
Black metal
Length = 61:11
Label = Massacre Records
Producer = King Diamond
Reviews =
*Allmusic Rating|2|5 [http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:gv6dtraqklmx link]
Last album = "The Spider's Lullabye"
(1995)
This album = "The Graveyard"
(1996)
Next album = "Voodoo"
(1998) |

"The Graveyard" is a concept album by King Diamond released in 1996. This was also the first album by King Diamond to be featured on the Massacre Records label.

Plot

In this story, King's character is an employee for a crooked, perverted and immoral mayor, Mayor McKenzie. One night, King's character happens to walk in on his boss molesting his daughter, Lucy. King doesn't keep quiet about this, but the mayor testifies that King is insane and has him locked up in Black Hill Sanitarium. After years of being there, King sees his chance to escape and takes it. Now mentally destroyed, King runs off to the local graveyard to hide from the police. Plotting his revenge against Mayor McKenzie, and killing people who pass through the graveyard at night, King is obsessed with a rumor that if you die in a graveyard and lose your head, your soul does not escape, and it lives forever in your head. With that thought in the back of his mind, he kidnaps Lucy McKenzie, the mayor's daughter and calls the mayor out to the graveyard for the two of them to play a game. Eventually, Mayor McKenzie does arrive after King sends a letter to him pretending to be Lucy. Before he arrives, King buried a sleeping Lucy in one of seven empty graves, the tombstones of which read "LUCY FOREVER".

King eventually reveals himself to the Mayor and knocks him out and blindfolds him. When he regains consciousness, King gives him a shovel and tells him to dig up his daughter. There are seven mounds, and he'll have three guesses or else he'll kill both of them. Despite this threat, the Mayor gets all three guesses wrong, and King knocks him out cold once more and ties him up to a tombstone.

While the Mayor slowly regains consciousness, King digs up Lucy and takes her out of the coffin while he starts to torture the Mayor. To Kings surprise, Lucy ends up pulling down on a cord that sends a sheet of broken glass from a broken chapel window down on King, decapitating him. The legend he was obsessed with turns out to be true as his head beckons Lucy not to leave him. To his relief, Lucy leaves her lecherous father tied up and bleeding in the graveyard as she takes King's head and puts it in her backpack, ending the story.

This story is one of revenge, subtle paranormal activity, and insanity.

Track listing

Lyrics by King Diamond. Music credits as indicated.
#"The Graveyard" – 1:22 (Diamond)
#"Black Hill Sanitarium" – 4:28 (LaRocque)
#"Waiting" – 4:26 (Diamond)
#"Heads on the Wall" – 6:20 (LaRocque)
#"Whispers" – 0:31 (LaRocque)
#"I'm Not a Stranger" – 4:03 (Diamond)
#"Digging Graves" – 6:55 (Diamond)
#"Meet Me at Midnight" – 4:46 (LaRocque)
#"Sleep Tight Little Baby" – 5:38 (Diamond)
#"Daddy" – 3:22 (Diamond)
#"Trick or Treat" – 5:09 (Diamond)
#"Up from the Grave" – 3:18 (Diamond)
#"I Am" – 5:50 (Diamond)
#"Lucy Forever" – 4:56 (LaRocque)

Credits

*King Diamond - All Vocals, Keyboards
*Andy LaRocque - Guitars
*Herb Simonsen - Guitars
*Chris Estes - Bass
*Darrin Anthony - Drums