Artist: Manilla Road
Genre(s):
Metal: Heavy
Rock
Discography:
Spiral Castle
Year: 2002
Tracks: 7
Atlantis Rising
Year: 2001
Tracks: 10
Courts Of Chaos
Year: 1990
Tracks: 10
Out Of The Abyss
Year: 1988
Tracks: 9
Mystification
Year: 1987
Tracks: 9
The Deluge
Year: 1986
Tracks: 11
Open The Gates
Year: 1985
Tracks: 12
Crystal Logic
Year: 1983
Tracks: 9
Metal
Year: 1982
Tracks: 7
Mark Of The Beast
Year: 1981
Tracks: 10
Invasion
Year: 1980
Tracks: 6
Wichita, KS-based Manilla Road is one of America's -- make that the world's -- majuscule cult hard metal bands. Geographically stranded, fiercely independent, and highly original, the group has seldom toured and never seen a individual album released by a major record company, just has nonetheless managed to stomach in 1 form of some other for over two decades.
Vocalizer and guitarist Mark Shelton was involved in a act of amateur bands during the seventies, performing jazz and country ahead wandering up in a rock band called Embryo, and afterwards creation Manilla Road in 1979 with bassist Scott Parks and drummer Rick Fisher. Unwilling to wait for record labels to come discover them all the room stunned in Wichita, the resourceful trio recorded its first record album, Invasion, later that year, then released it through the band's own Roadster Records for estimable criterion. Another album, tentatively entitled The Dreams of Eschaton, was finished and shelved because the bandmembers weren't happy with the results, merely they gave it another judge and duly came up with 1982's simply coroneted Alloy LP.
Despite such declarative titles, however, Manilla Road's first base efforts actually delved into everything from progressive to blank space and straightforward hard john Rock, and it wasn't until 1983's watershed Crystal Logic that their metallic inclinations truly took over. Fusing a few tarriance hard rock music tricks and a penchant for epic and fantasy lyrics with the recent esthetic innovations of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal, Crystal Logic boasted improved sound tone, introduced Manilla Road to a wider heavy metallic element fan al-Qa'ida (peculiarly beyond America's borders), and signaled the beginning of their gold age. This would be marked by truly victorious subsequent efforts like Assailable the Gates (1985), The Deluge (1986), and, to a lesser degree, Mystification (1987) -- all of which were released by French main Black Dragon Records and featured the more belligerent, inventive, and thrash-attuned drumming of new arriver Randy Foxe.
Released in 1987, Live Roadkill preceded a couple of less memorable just motionless occasionally elysian efforts in 1988's thrash and H.P. Lovecraft-obsessed Out of the Abyss and 1990's disjointed and competently named The Courts of Chaos. This proven to be the final stem for Manilla Road's "classic" batting order, since Parks and Foxe were no longer speaking, and Shelton was pretty burnt out himself. Looking for a unused startle, he set to rest the Manilla Road identify and recruited Aaron Brown and drummer/vocalist Andrew Coss to join forces on a fresh externalize. Far more than eclectic and progressive in nature, 1992's The Circus Maximus was intended to double as both their band and record album name, simply when it came down to comminute meter, Black Dragon deviously slapped Manilla Road on the cover in order to warrant larger gross sales.
None too pleased with this playact of thaumaturgy, a disillusioned Shelton vanished from stack for a few age, just finally re-emerged with a revamped Manilla Road (featuring bassist Mark Anderson and drummer Scott Peters) for 2001's Atlantis Rising and 2002's Spiral Castle (likewise featuring another vocaliser in Bryan Patrick). Later that year, Manilla Road's long helpless instant record album was granted an official going as Grade of the Beast, and recent reports indicate that Mark Shelton has no project to retire anytime before long.
