Description

Record Store Day 2020 releae with patch. Limited 500 copies

Manilla Road were a Witchita, Kansas based metal band that started out way back in 1977. Mark Shelton, on guitar and vocals, founded the band with a few high school buddies and after playing in the local bar scene for a bit, they managed to get traction and release their first album, titled Invasion, in 1980. In the early days, Manilla Road played a traditional style of metal that blended elements of progressive and space rock to create a relaxing and otherwordly sound. The band’s landmark 1983 album Crystal Logic saw the band evolve to a style almost entirely their own – epic heavy metal. The famous Manilla Road brand of epic heavy metal blended elements of traditional metal, US-style power metal, doom metal, and sometimes even thrash metal with the loose and lengthy song structures found in the band’s space rock roots. While lyrics don’t determine a musical genre, Mark always had an affinity for building fantasy worlds with his meticulously crafted words. All this melts together to create a unique and grandiose sound that separates Manilla Road from the legions of bands out there. Manilla Road would evolve and adapt their style with time. Mark was great at incorporating the various influences and forces at work within the metal world into his own songwriting. As a result. each album has its own unique flair and character. Mark Shelton past away due to a heart failure after the band’s performance at Headbangers Open Air festival on the 26th of July 2018. This special Record Store Day album was recorded two months earlier at the Up The Hammers Festival on the 25th of May and was only released in Germany, Austria and Switzerland for the RSD in April 2020.

Track list:
1. The Quadrilogy
a) Masque Of The Red Death
b) Death By The Hammer
c) Hammer Of The Witches
d) Witches Brew
2. Defender
3. Metal
4. Crystal Logic