the following King Diamond update was taken verbatim from www.blabbermouth.net KING DIAMOND have finished writing 12 songs for their next studio album, “The Puppet Master”, tentatively due in October through Metal Blade Records. According to the band’s official web site, “King wrote nine songs this time and finished writing the music for those songs about two weeks ago. [KING DIAMOND guitarist] Andy [LaRocque] contributed three songs. So most likely there will be 12 songs on the album. However there is a slight possibility a short instrumental song might make it on the album. That is not confirmed at the moment. “This time there will be no typical intro but an intro song which will be around two minutes [long] and is entitled ‘The Sailor’ which ends with the words ‘Let The Show Begin’ before kicking in with the [title track]. “The new songs sound very aggressive but still have a lot of theatrical elements in it,” King said. “Expect a lot of double kicks in the songs I wrote.” Also included on the album will be “a very sad, sad song (probably entitled ‘So Sad’), which has very intense guitar playing on it,” according to the web site. “King also said drummer Matt Thompson contributed a guitar riff on one of the songs. [In addition], on one of the songs, ‘The Little Drummer Boy’ theme is used. Further news is that Andy will arrive on February 27th in Dallas where he and King will start recording the songs. [KING DIAMOND bassist] Hal [Patino] will arrive about three weeks later.”