King Diamond is one of those rare cases wich you either seem to love or hate, and since I am inclined to choose the first, and managed to pick up Abigail II -  The revenge over the weekend I might as well go and review it.
Lyrically this is, of course, a straight follow up to the 87 classic Abigail, while musically speaking it draws more from later albums like The Graveyard or House of God, save perhaps that it might be just a tad more complex than the aforementioned two releases.
Apart from King Diamond himself, the main star of this record is once again Andy Laroque, whose excellent riffs, melodies and brilliant solo's form a solid base for King's demonic shrieking and growling. New members in the band this time around are Mike Wead (whom we all known from Hexenhaus, Memento Mori and of course, Mercyful fate) and Matt Thompson while we also see the return of bass-player Hal Patino.
As usual the production is excellent too, and we get treated to a lot of eerie sound effects, adding a great deal of atmosphere to the actual story. Favourite songs this time around include the storm, Miriam and Slippery stairs. A bonus point must go to the beautifull artwork and packaging, and you can only wish that other musicians would come up with high quality stuff like this, instead of just adding a 3 paper booklet wich, in a lot of cases even miss the lyrics.
All in all, this certainly is a worthy successor to Abigail, and a must-have for long-time King fans. Expect to see this one high-up in my personal charts at the end of the year !