Guitarist Andy La Rocque recently talked to Friday 13th Metal, where he shared updates about King Diamond’s long-awaited new album ”The Institute”:

“We have songs. I sent (King Diamond’s namesake frontman) like a bunch of songs a long time ago, actually. And we started working on that, with arrangements and such. And then the Mercyful Fate tour came in between, and they’ve been busy with that. And I think they’re gonna be recording one or two singles with MF.

”But I talked to King just like a week ago, and he said that he was gonna be starting yesterday or something like that. So he’s starting with setting everything up and he’s gonna start to record the vocals for Mercy songs, and soon as he’s done with that, we’re gonna continue with King Diamond.

”So we have songs; they just need to be a little bit arranged. And, of course, King has a lot of riffs and ideas in his head. So he needs to get that down to the computer and do some riffing and stuff. So we started it, but it’s a long process to have it good and to have it the way we want it.”