New King Diamond album won’t arrive before 2023

Metal Blade Records founder and CEO Brian Slagel spoke to Canada’s The Metal Voice about the progress of the songwriting sessions for new studio albums from both King Diamond and Mercyful Fate. He said (as transcribed by Blabbermouth):

I had a really good conversation with [King Diamond, who fronts both King Diamond and Mercyful Fate] the other day, and he’s working on both King Diamond and Mercyful Fate. I might have heard a demo or two that sounded really, really good.

I don’t know when either of these records are gonna come out, ’cause King likes to do things at his own speed. It’s, like, ‘Hey, whatever works for you is totally fine with me.’ But I was very happy with what I’ve heard so far. So hopefully everybody will be pretty happy.

Mercyful Fate is doing a bunch of festivals this summer — knock on wood — as long as they don’t get canceled. And then they’re also playing Psycho [Las Vegas] fest in Las Vegas, which I think will definitely be the only U.S. date. There’s a possibility there could be a Canadian date somewhere along the line here too. But we’ll see.

But there will be a new King Diamond record, I’m hoping, in 2023. And there will also be a new  record sometime soon-ish.

Metal Blade Records founder and CEO Brian Slagel

Last month, King said that he was working on lyrics for the long-awaited new album from his namesake band. Titled “The Institute”, the group’s first studio LP in 15 years is tentatively next year via Metal Blade.