Mercyful Fate share update on new album progress

Guitar World recently spoke to Mercyful Fate frontman King Diamond as well as guitarists Hank Shermann and Mike Wead about the band's forthcoming full length release. That effort could see a release as early as the end of the year.

The Danish metal band debuted a new song, "The Jackal Of Salzburg", last June while playing in Hannover, DE. Speaking about that song Wead shared:

It's one of the more epic songs out of the new ones I've heard. It's kind of bombastic, with a slight touch of doom metal, which is a bit different for MERCY. But then again, MERCY was never a band that stood still, either.

Speaking on the about the source material for the lyrics behind "The Jackal Of Salzburg" King Diamond shared:

It's so grotesque, man. There was a young man, 20 years old, whose mother was burned alive as a witch in 1675. Two years later they started hunting [the son] based on confessions the mom had made under torture, where she gave up her son as being in league with the devil. It's pretty shocking when you think about spearing a child on this horrible thing that goes up your backend and comes out through your mouth, or on a wheel that would pull them apart. Completely insane.

The group was asked about the potential time line for the upcoming album to which Shermann shared the following:

That's a really good question, because I really don't know, other than that I have at least eight or nine songs ready to be worked on. We already have three songs worked out, out of those, and the drums for The Jackal of Salzburg are recorded. I would also say it probably depends on what the reaction is from this US tour.

Maybe we might rethink the order of the releases. The plan is that King Diamond will focus on their The Institute album, but at the same time [we'll] work on the Mercyful Fate album. The Institute is designed to come out first. Hopefully they can both happen in 2023.

The band's first U.S. tour in over two decades wrapped up this past November.