To put it as short as possible: King Diamond has done it again! His twelfth solo album 'Give Me Your Soul…Please' is a rock solid King Diamond album from start to end.

As usual, the songs on the album depict an overall horror story. This time King is being haunted, primarily by the ghost of a little girl, in his own home. The girl and her brother were brutally murdered by their father. In the afterlife the boy was mistakenly sent to hell by 13 judges who believed that he died as an act of suicide. The girl now tries to bring her brother back by finding a pure soul to put in his body. For some reason King’s soul seems like the obvious choice???

I could describe this album to lengths, because there are many interesting things to say about it, but for those already familiar with Mr. Diamond, it will be enough to mention (again) that this is King playing King music: The riffs are clever and well composed, the solos are as brilliant as ever, nothing rhymes, the story is well told, and the whole thing is very tight and confident.

On the small scale though, there are some new things that I think is worth mentioning: King has almost abandoned his trademark high pitched voice entirely. He does still sing in falsetto, but it sounds more like the soft voice of a quire boy than the usual eerie screaming. On the other hand, the vocals have become much more melodic than on previous albums, and King is instead experimenting with a few new singing techniques (actually they are more like classic techniques, but they are new on a King album). I guess this is a tradeoff which is necessary at some point, and it does not make the album lesser in any way.

Speaking of tradeoffs, it also seems to me that the band has been focusing more on making a good straight heavy metal album than delivering a spooky atmosphere this time. Even the intro seems a bit rushed. The little girl does not sound like a little girl at all, and so the only song that actually works in creating a bit of theatrical setting, is Shapes of Black. Unfortunately this song is placed as track 11 on the album, so the moment has kind of passed at that time. Still, it’s an excellent album!