I have problems with people paying "tribute" to Mercyful Fate. Fate has always had a unique style, musically and vocally. If you can't hang with the awesome riffage,or hit those creepy vocal lines, the result is almost always gonna be failure.On first look, you hope the album is as killer as the artwork.The Equinox cover of "Gypsy" is a pretty good track to kick off this album.Soilwork's rendition of "Egypt" proves that if you can't sing it the way it was meant to be,then don't make an ass out of yourself.Just plain bad.By far the best song on the album is Deceased with "Doomed By The Living Dead".Not only do they match the excellence of this song, but they inject a little bit of their own metal mayhem into it.King Fowley does a good job of hitting the high notes.Memory Garden's cover of "Nightmare Be Thy Name" should have been on one of those comdedy albums because it made me laugh so hard.Next up is Acheron with "Room Of Golden Air".They played it safe by covering an instrumental song so they wouldn't butcher any of the vocals.Kind of sloppy but otherwise pretty decent."Desecration Of Souls" is one of favorite Mercyful Fate songs, so i would be really upset if some band fucked up a cover of it.I was pleasantly suprised with Morta Skuld's cover.The guttural death vox gives it a strange feeling but you can tell this band has alot of talent.The second best song on the album is Dan Swano's "Melissa".He replaces the haunting guitar lone with a piano which i thought was pretty innovative.Varathon totally fucked up a classic,"Nuns Have No Fun",with awkward sounding keyboards and a horrible vocalist.He has a hard time speaking because of the language barrier.Burning Inside, Hemisfear, Mystic Force, and Pyscho Scream all blew their songs.("Evil", "Black Funeral", "Curse Of The Pharaohs", and "A Dangerous Meeting") In case you couldn't tell, I fast forwarded through this CD alot.Vital Remains did a stunning version of "To One Far Away/Come To The Sabbath".Necrophagia did a so-so cover of "Devil Eyes", which wasn't anything special but nonetheless entertained.If you love Mercyful Fate then you can buy this album and be entertained or be disgusted with what you hear.I guess its all in the ear of the beholder.

This review is credited to:
Death_Explosion