King Diamond opens the door to...Them on September 13, 1988


There’s a house on Mercyful Lane - a manor, really - a crooked old place where the shadows don’t just linger—they crawl. It’s the kind of house that hums with secrets, where the wallpaper peels, and the air tastes of mold, rotting wood, and regret. The kind of house that has gargoyles on the peaks of its roof(!). Back on September 13, 1988, something wicked slithered out of that house, something that bestowed upon us a key to a door best left locked. That was the day King Diamond, that pale-faced conjurer of nightmares, unleashed Them upon the world—a record that didn’t just play but possessed.

Now, if you knew King Diamond, you already knew you weren’t getting a sunny walk in the park. This wasn’t a man who sang about rainbows or puppies. This was a man who lived in the crypt of his own imagination, a maestro of the macabre, with a voice that could shatter glass or grumble like a Panzer tank. But Them…Them was different. King Diamond, always the storyteller, decided to invite us into his childhood home, a place where the attic wasn't just a storage space, but a portal. And They were waiting.

The story unfolds like a nightmare you can’t quite shake, a slow, creeping dread that gets under your skin. It’s about a boy, a house, and an evil entity that resides in a possessed teapot, talking to him through his insane grandmother. A teapot, mind you. Not some grand, gothic beast, but a chipped piece of porcelain, innocent enough to sit on any kitchen counter. And that’s where the true horror lies, isn't it? Not in the obvious monster, but in the familiar, twisted into something foul.

Grandma's just back from the asylum. Grandma’s brew isn’t just a drink, but a summoning. The house on Mercyful Lane is alive, you see, with “Them”—spirits, demons, or maybe just the echoes of madness. They watch. They wait. And when the tea is poured, they act.

Little King wasn’t a bad boy, not really. But he drank the tea. Just one sip, and that’s all it took. The voices, They, burrowed into his mind, telling him things. His sister, Missy, saw it. She saw what the tea was doing, the slow poison of it. She smashed the teapot, Amon, in a desperate, act of rebellion. They didn’t like that. Not one bit.

Them isn’t an easy listen. It’s not background music for washing dishes. This is an album you put on when the lights are low, when the wind howls outside, and every creak of the old house sounds like a footstep on the stairs. An album for this time of year, when the nights are chilling, and Halloween looms. It’s an album that preys on the primal fear of the unknown, the whispers in the dark, the idea that something ancient and malevolent might be dwelling right there, in your own four walls, in your own family.

Because sometimes, the greatest horrors aren’t outside, under a full moon, in a graveyard. Sometimes, they’re just in the attic, waiting for you to open the door, waiting for you to listen to Them. And on September 13th, 1988, King Diamond opened that door.

Maybe that house on Mercyful Lane is real, somewhere out there in the fog, waiting for the next fool to knock.

Today, 37 years later, Them still casts a long shadow. It’s not just an album but a relic, a cursed artifact that still thrums with malevolent life. Play it at midnight, alone, with the lights off, and you’ll swear you hear something moving in the dark. You’ll check the locks, pour out your tea, and wonder if the voices are in the music—or in your head. So here’s to Them, born on a September day when the world got a little darker, a little colder. It’s a reminder that some houses you don’t leave behind. Some stories don’t end. And some music doesn’t just play—it watches.

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