Mercyful Fate - Into The Coven - Guitar Tab

Melissa

1983 5:12

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About Into The Coven

Few Heavy Metal tracks from 1983 demand as much from a rhythm guitarist as this one. "Into The Coven" runs at 120 BPM in E minor on standard tuning, and the challenge is not raw speed but precision: the riff work shifts constantly between palm-muted chugging and open, ringing power chords, so your right hand has to stay disciplined throughout. The twin-guitar interplay that Mercyful Fate built their sound around is very much present here, meaning a single guitarist playing the track has to make choices about which part to cover and which to let go. The main riff is satisfying once clean, but the transitions between sections catch players off guard the first few times through. Use the Practice Toolbar to loop those transition bars at reduced speed until the pick-hand muting pattern feels automatic. Getting the E minor tonality to sound genuinely dark rather than muddy comes down to clean left-hand fretting, so keep an eye on your finger placement on the lower strings.

• The song is built around twin-guitar riffing in E minor, so playing it solo means deciding which of the two guitar parts to prioritise.
• At 120 BPM in standard E tuning, the main challenge is clean transitions between palm-muted and open power chord passages rather than speed.
• The riff phrasing has an angular, syncopated quality that rewards slow, isolated practice before you attempt it at full tempo.