Mercyful Fate
's debut album,
Melissa
, took
Black Sabbath
's dark occult obsessions to an extreme, fusing them with the speed and tightened, twin-guitar riffing attack of British
metal
bands like
Judas Priest
and
Iron Maiden
. But the band had a distinctive sound of its own, thanks to the
neo-classical
flourishes of guitarists
Hank Shermann
Michael Denner
and the unpredictable vocal leaps of
King Diamond
, who could jump from a deathly growl to an unearthly falsetto wail in the next line. The band was still finding itself, and some of the songs on
have a tendency to move into long, meandering instrumental sections, but the basic components of
's influential European gothic
black metal
sound were already in place. ~ Steve Huey