Wiki
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Release Date
20 October 2003
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Length
12 tracks
Album Story/Concept:
King Diamond meets Victoria after a Christmas show put on by the Puppet Master in Budapest. One year after they meet, his beloved goes missing and he sets out to find her. While searching, he comes across the Puppet Master's wife killing a homeless man. He follows her into a building where he is struck from behind and loses consciousness.
When King regains consciousness, he finds himself strapped to a hospital bed and The Puppet Master and his wife standing in front of him with a scalpel. The Puppet Master leans over him and says: "First your eyes… then your skin… we will make you feel born again." and starts to cut out his eyes. One eyelid drops down into a jar. The Puppet Master uses an instrument to pull the eyeball out of its socket, and cuts off the nerve-string which is the only thing holding the eye in place. The Puppet Master then puts the eyeball into a puppet's eye socket. His body is being made into a puppet that comes to life when blood is injected into it. An accident during the ritual when The Puppet Master is dealing with the Devil about King's soul, leaves King Diamond's soul trapped within his permanently aware eyes. It is after this that he sees his girlfriend's body, now a puppet, on another shelf in the Puppet Master's shop.
King Diamond and his beloved are infused with a syringe-full of their blood nightly, so they can practice their routines and learn how to perform for their Master. Each night, after being put away, King and his beloved "talk with their eyes" from across the room as the essence of their blood fades away. King Diamond is forced to witness her fading away every night, because his immortal eyes keep him from slipping away like she does. Eventually, the girl accidentally walks into the wall where shelves hold jars of blood for the puppets and she knocks six of them down. She is sent away to Berlin and King vows to find her again.
Christmas time comes around for the third time in the tale, and King is to perform as The Little Drummer Boy. At his performance, he intentionally falls and breaks his drum to embarrass the Puppet Master. For his actions, he is sold to a shop and left nailed to the wall. At some point, he hears of how the Puppet Master is building a second theater in London, to be run by the Puppet Master's son and daughter and he re-affirms his vow to find his lost love or see her on the "other side".
Album Personnel:
* King Diamond - Vocals, Keyboards
* Andy LaRocque - Guitars, Keyboards
* Mike Wead - Guitars
* Hal Patino - Bass
* Matt Thompson - Drums
* Livia Zita - Additional vocals
Christmas contains an excerpt from "The Little Drummer Boy" written by Davis/Onorati/Simeone
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