UMUR
Give Me Your Soul... Please is the 12th full-length studio album by multinational heavy metal act King Diamond. The album was released in June 2007 by Metal Blade Records in the US and Massacre Records in Europe.
Give Me Your Soul... Please is as usual a concept album where all songs on the album form a story. The story is about a man and his cat ( King Diamond himself and his cat Magic) who live alone in a house on Never Ending Hill by Devil Lake ( yes there is a bit of conceptual continuity here as Devil Lake also appear on The Spider´s Lullaby (1995). Actually "THEM" from "Them" (1988) also appear in the story). Unfortunately for him it´s revealed that a girl and her little brother have been murdered by their father in the house and now the girl has come back for a new soul for her little brother, who will otherwise go to hell. You can almost guess how that ends. So this is essentially a haunted house tale. A lot of effort is put into building a dark an ominous atmosphere, but unlike some of the band´s earlier brilliant efforts, I´m sorry to say that the story for Give Me Your Soul... Please doesn´t really captivate me. Too much time is spend building the atmosphere and not enough time is spend on action.
The music on the album is in the trademark heavy metal style with neo-classical and thrash metal elements. There are absolutely no surprises here. Wether that´s a good or a bad thing is up for you to decide. Personally I´m not too happy about the lack of adventurous ideas and what was once a brilliant concept has now become a bit stale. Even King Diamond´s distinct high pitched vocal style don´t do much for me anymore. While Andy LaRocque and Mike Wead play one melodic and powerful guitar solo after the other, the rest of the music sounds like routine. Just another day at the office. Again I can´t say I enjoy the flat and lifeless production either. Something that has been a problem on many albums now.
Give Me Your Soul... Please is the kind of album that King Diamond could compose with their left hand while sleeping. I can´t deny that it´s a quality release but I miss inspiration and spark.