Renzo van Soelen, the webmaster of King Diamond's official web site, Coven Worldwide, has issued the following update:

"I just got off the phone with King. We talked about two hours and he gave me some very exclusive info about the forthcoming King Diamond CD. King told me he had just finished recording the vocals which he had been doing for the last four weeks about six hours a day.

"In the next three weeks King and Andy [La Rocque, guitar] will be mixing and mastering the album (starting Monday, March 5).

"Is this better than 'The Puppet Master', I asked him. King started laughing and explained it as follows: 'We tried to get our driver's license for twenty years and now we finally got it. We passed the test! It's the best album ever, definitely — there is no doubt about that, for sure. Even the work mix sounds better than any album yet. The music and story are great. I am sure these are my best vocals yet. Andy said to me that he not played solos like this since 'The Eye'. Mike [Wead, guitar] told me he has never been so inspired to do solos as on this album. And, yes, Livia is on the album too!'

"King said to me: 'I guarantee you this is the best album yet — I am positive about it. It's more King Diamond than there has ever been. It has the best King Diamond top class through the whole album. The story is very dark, perhaps one of the darkest I have ever done.'

"King mentioned the intro to the album is a 'real' intro again, like where Midnight (from 'The Puppet Master') was more of a pre-song .

"Want to get a little taste of what you might expect from the lyrics? Here you go:
'Me and my black cat Magic, the beautiful house on Never Ending Hill, the little girl in the bloody dress and her dead little brother, the dark, the floating head woman, shapes of black and YOU.'

"The cover represents a little girl standing on a winding stairs in a white dress covered with blood (which actually is the blood from her little brother). I have seen the unfinished cover and I'll just know you're gonna love it! King also said that the front cover will look like a mirror.

"The album will probably be released late June/beginning of July. Nothing is certain yet but it looks that way."

The album, which will be "Gimme Your Soul … Please", will contain the following 13 tracks:

01. The Dead (King)
02. Never Ending Hill (Andy)
03. Is Anybody Here? (King)
04. Black of Night (Andy)
05. Mirror, Mirror (King)
06. The Cellar (Andy)
07. Pictures in Red (Andy)
08. Gimme Your Soul (King)
09. The Floating Head (Andy)
10. Cold as Ice (King)
11. Shapes of Black (King)
12. The Girl in The Bloody Dress (King)
13. Moving On (King)

Revolver magazine recently reported that King Diamond new CD was inspired by a painting called "My Mother's Eyes" which the band's distributor in Denmark stumbled across while surfing the Net (and which Diamond has since bought for the new CD cover). The more Diamond looked at the image of a battered blond girl with blood covering her white dress, holding out palms affixed with protruding eyeballs, the more it captivated and inspired him. "I can feel the energy of the front cover in all the songs we wrote, and it will definitely affect my lyrics," he promised.

Diamond wrote the music for the new album from December 2005 through February 2006, then recorded the basic tracks in his basement.

"It classes over anything I've ever done," Diamond beamed. "The arrangements are more intricate, the production is better, and for the parts where there are violins, it sounds like we hired the Royal Philharmonic. As long as I don't fuck up the vocals, this should be our best record."

King Diamond current lineup:

King Diamond - Vocals
Andy La Rocque - Guitar
Mike Wead - Guitar
Hal Patino - Bass
Matt Thompson - Drums