MERCYFUL FATE To Release New Versions Of 'Evil' And 'Curse Of The Pharaohs' On iTunes

As many fans already know, MERCYFUL FATE's "Evil" is featured as a playable track on "Guitar Hero: Metallica". The band re-recorded "Evil" and "Curse Of The Pharaohs" specifically for the game because the original masters no longer exist. Now the group is making both cuts available to fans to purchase on iTunes!

These versions feature four of the five original MERCYFUL FATE members (vocalist King Diamond, guitarist Hank Shermann, guitarist Michael Denner and bassist Timi Hansen) along with the band's current drummer, Bjarne T. Holm. The recording session was overseen by Hank Shermann at Earplug Studio in Copenhagen, Denmark; after which King Diamond laid down his vocals at Nomad Recording Studio in Dallas, Texas, and mixed the song with J.T. Longoria.

KING DIAMOND frontman/namesake comments: "It was a lot of fun to get a chance to re-record 'Evil' and 'Curse of the Pharaohs' from our 1983 'Melissa' album. It was cool to go into the studio and try to figure out all the various harmony vocals and see if I could still do them. The other guys had a lot of fun with this project too, and the whole thing turned out much better than we could have hoped for. Everyone nailed their performances and Hank's solos were even slightly improved. Everything is right where it should be and with a much better sound! The 'feel' was there and all of the guys — Hank, Denner, Timi and Bjarne are all naturals. The versions that will be up on iTunes were mastered by Andy LaRocque and even with a 2009 sound, there's no doubt that these songs were recorded by MERCYFUL FATE!"

"Evil" (listen to audio stream below) and "Curse Of The Pharaohs" will be available for fans to purchase digitally on July 14. A special edition picture disc vinyl single will be available on September 1.

"Evil" and "Curse Of The Pharaohs" were originally recorded in 1983 and were two of theMERCYFUL FATE songs that comprise METALLICA's "Mercyful Fate" medley.

In a recent interview with Destructoid, King Diamond stated about the decision to re-record the track, "When Lars [Ulrich, METALLICA drummer] called me you know, when he invited us to be a part of ['Guitar Hero: Metallica'], he suggested either 'Evil' or 'Curse of the Pharoahs'. Then we started looking for the masters. They were nowhere to be found. I was thinking, 'Oh god, can't be true. We're going to miss out on such a great opportunity.' So I talked to the other guys, and it turned out to be a re-recording by four out of five original members. Otherwise, it's all the old guys that did that song the first time 25 years ago. We went in and re-recorded them and they sounded so much better. [laughs] But they stay totally true to the original. The guitar solo by one guitarist, Michael Denner, I would say is 100 percent identical. Every bend, every harmony that he puts on a solo and stuff like that is identical. The other guitarist Hank Shermann, is 98 percent identical. Those two percent that aren't identical is because there were so few notes back in the old solos, 'gah, you can't do those, we have to do it better.' So we fixed those few things. Otherwise, of course, it's a more in-your-face sound than on the old album. It was interesting also for me to go in and do vocals and then go back and pick out some of these harmonies and say, 'What was it that I did back then?' And then recreate that stuff. So we did two songs and they picked 'Evil' for the game, you know."

"Evil" (2008 recording):