Well, Deftones is not my cup of tea, so I won't comment on them, but since I've heard "House of God" and have been very loyal to King Diamond (though I never really liked Mercyful Fate) I'll share some thoughts.

After excellent "The Spider's Lullaby" came too very disappointing albums -"Graveyard" and "Voodoo", both of which lacked good plots and memorable songs, so I didn't expect much from the new opus. Surprisingly enough, "House of God" took me back to the glory days of "Fatal Portrait", "Abigail" and "The Eye", all three being my favorite King records. What astonished me the most is the concept for the new CD. Frankly, I never expected Diamond to touch upon philosophical topics of existence and distance from his usual themes using desolated houses, cemeteries, evil old ladies and preachers as key elements. Of course, the story on “House of God” is still terrifying, but it’s presented in a much more clever way than on two previous albums. As far as musical content is concerned, the band made a focus on songs being traditionally structured, i.e. verse / bridge / chorus, as opposed to clever riffing, many long and boring passages as seen on “Voodoo” and “Graveyard”. You can actually distinguish songs from each other, and you can even listen to some of them separately. My only complaint would be poor artwork and somewhat flat production, apart from that “House of God” is a definite winner.

Cheers,
Jacob.