Date: August 2006
Release Year: 1998, Wikipedia Link
This was the first King Diamond (KD) album I ever listened to back in high school, and man I was soo impressed! To be honest, apart from Iron Maiden and Judas Priest, I was not very much into classical heavy metal at that time. I was more of a thrash metal fan and Metallica, Slayer, Pantera and Overkill were my favorite bands. I liked my metal heavy and fast. At the same time, I was also curious about KD, because I really liked the concept albums and horror stories. Then one day one of my friends let me borrow the cassette of Voodoo from him and then I immediately loved the album upon the first listen. Needless to say, I became a huge KD fan afterwards. Although after hearing his whole discography, I would hesitate to put Voodoo among his best works, it is definitely a very nice album.
Because the KD’s previous albums (Spider’s Lullaby and The Graveyard) weren’t commercially very successful, the label had pressed him to write more accessible and catchy music this time. As a result, Voodoo has a much lighter tone compared to those albums and the music is easier to get into. The concept of the album is also based around more common horror themes such as a family moving into an haunted house. Don’t get me wrong, the album is still 100% KD and it is still not the kind of music you could easily hear on the radio.
The album starts off with the face ripping riff-mania “LOA House”. KD always selects very catchy and powerful songs to open the album, but this one is exceptionally stellar. The songs is like a summary of elements that make KD great, multi-layered falsetto vocals, ingenious tempo transitions and awesome guitar solos from LaRocque. This track alone makes the album worth buying in my opinion. Rest of the album has very good tracks too, however except the amazing “One Down Two To Go”, I cannot point to any tracks that standout.
Voodoo is definitely a very enjoyable album and could work as a good introduction if you haven’t heard KD before (well it worked for me!). But you should also know that KD has much more powerful albums than this one, so make sure you check his whole discography.
Definitive Moments: The whole “LOA House” is just amazing. Ritual Drums in “Voodoo”. The moment where the electric guitar kicks in “One Down Two To Go” and King’s vocals in the chorus of the same song. Main riff of “The Exorcist”.
Score: 7.5/10