Roadrunner Records
2004
Don't Break The Oath / Return Of The Vampire (The Rare And Unreleased)
About This Album
The second in a pair of excellent Mercyful Fate two-fers released by Roadrunner Records, Don't Break the Oath/Return of the Vampire is similar to its predecessor in that it couples one of the trendsetting metal band's proper albums with an album-like collection of rarities. The proper album here is Don't Break the Oath (1984), undoubtedly Mercyful Fate's masterstroke, and the rarities collection is Return of the Vampire (1992), a surprisingly strong collection of 1981/1982 demos that were the basis for the band's forthcoming albums. If you're new to Mercyful Fate (and many surely will be, given the band's brief, underground existence yet prolonged, infamous legacy), this two-fer is a recommended place to begin, especially when coupled with its complement, Melissa/The Beginning (this pair of two-fers should be all the Mercyful Fate you'll ever need, unless you really like this band, in which case there's a whole second phase of lesser recordings from the '90s). Don't Break the Oath is beyond doubt the one album you'll want to hear. It encapsulates everything amazing about Mercyful Fate, shedding light on precisely why this shadowy, short-lived band of seeming Satanists became such a cult phenomenon; it also laid the groundwork for what would evolve into so-called black metal a decade later in the band's native Scandinavia.
Track List

Disc 1 (try tracks 1 and 6)

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Disc 2 (try tracks 3 and 4)

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