Abigail by King Diamond

This post is a little different— different from my posts about the likes of Dolly Parton or Britney Spears. If you’re unfamiliar, King Diamond is a Danish metal musician who is the known leader of the eponymous band, King Diamond. Abigail is the band’s second studio album, and it’s also famously the band’s first concept album. The fact Abigail has this wonderful, theatrical concept to it is what I think really what launches it into this untouchable work of music— at least to me. I’m not a well-versed metalhead and I’m definitely not trying to be, but I think anyone with a musically open mind could listen to this album and respect the entertainment value and musicality of it all. The concept of this album definitely does something monumental; yes, there were plenty of concept albums being released by bands like The Who, The Beatles ect., but Abigail seems to be one of the first to tell a full-blown horror story within the contents of his tracks. I’d be sacrilegious while talking about Abigail to neglect the details of the story being told and to only focus on the music, so I’m going to switch it up from my normal post-pattern and tackle this album as such: First, let me explain a little of the concept in terms of the track listing, and beware, it’s a little Halloween-y and gruesome, and then I’ll talk about the songs in more detail. Now, on with the show…

The first song on Abigail is titled “Funeral,” and it’s a short, narrated track that gives us a little backstory before the album’s big chain of action begins. The dialogue is telling us that in the Summer of 1777, July 7th to be exact, a burial was being held of Abigail La’Fey, the titular, who was a baby born still. However, its said that Abigail had to be nailed to her coffin with seven silver spikes, one through each arm, hand, and knee, and the remaining through her mouth “so that she may never arise and cause evil again,” giving us a bit of indication that Abigail was some sort of demon-spawn baby. After this brief accompanied intro, we are plunged into the second track titled, “Arrival.” The lyrics in “Arrival” tell us that we are now in the year 1845, following a young couple, Jonathan La’Fey and his wife, Miriam Natias, as they travel to move into an old, untouched mansion that Jonathan inherited. As the couple approach the mansion, they are halted in their tracks by seven horsemen who tell them that they should turn back now, and not move into the mansion or else “18 will become 9.” Jonathan haughtily shrugs off the horsemen’s advice off and proceeds to make his move into the mansion.

The third track, “A Mansion in the Darkness” depicts Jonathan and Miriam moving into the mansion, that was seemingly untouched for the last 68 years. There isn’t much action in this song, it’s just working to give us a creepy vision of the mansion. The next song, however, is completely action packed and reveals quite a few important plot points. “The Family Ghost” starts with Jonathan waking up in the middle of the night to a blinding light that then addresses Jonathan saying: “Don't be scared. Don't be scared now, my friend/I am Count de la Fey/Let me take you to the crypt down below/Where Abigail rests./Let Miriam sleep/She never would understand/Now come let us go/It's time to know….” So when Count de la Fey and Jonathan are in the crypt, where Abigail’s sarcophagus is located, the Count tells Jon the story of Abigail being stillborn, and how now, Abigail’s spirit is inside his wife, Miriam, waiting to be reborn into the world. The Count says that if Jonathan doesn’t kill his Miriam, there will be a “rebirth of evil itself.”

The story of Abigail as told by Count de la Fey continues through the song “The 7th Day of July 1777,” where the Count shares with Jonathan that on that day, he found out his wife, who was 9 month pregnant, had been having an affair and the child she was carrying wasn’t his. Enraged by the fact that the bastard baby that would be first to inherit all the things that were his, Count de la Fey threw his wife down the stairs to kill her and the child. His wife died, and the baby came out stillborn. The Count then became obsessed with the idea of naming the baby girl Abigail and mummifying her remains to preserve her body for the future.