God damn, the new album cover is absolutely gorgeous. As Empyreal observed, it could very well be their best ever. Cannot wait to check this bitch out.

God damn, the new album's cover is gorgeous. As Empyreal observed, it just might be their best ever. Cannot wait to check this bitch out.

We need a tracklist for this soon.

I swear that wasn't there earlier when I posted that. But thanks. Cool song titles.

I feel this album may compete with the 80's albums like Out Of The Abyss and Mystification. I feel like they've been gradually heading in that direction lately and from some of the comments Mark has made.

Very eager to hear it as well. Playground was more old-school MR and I loved it, if they continue that direction while adding bits reminding of precise 80ies albums, it will definitely be a winner.

Track by track statement by Drummer Neudi, all in German. Google translate works well enough I suppose...

http://translate.google.ca/translate?hl ... CDEQ7gEwAA

Well this is very interesting, thanks man! I wish I could comprehend the original as I'm sure there are subtleties being lost.

I don't really know what to expect from this album. I'm a little nervous, because although Manilla Road is my favorite band of all time (I wonder how many times I've typed that on this forum), Mystification may be my least favorite (pre-hiatus) album of theirs. I don't know why, I just never really got into it as much. Something about the way they balanced the thrashy tunes with the epic stuff...the percentages just weren't right for me. So I'm kind of secretly hoping that this isn't nearly as much like Mystification as the Road gang is indicating. Somehow I feel like that's probably a safe hope.

That being said...this new drummer may change everything. I always thought Shelton was kind of done writing thrashy riffs. Even when he plays fast these days it doesn't have a "thrash" feel to me. But now I'm realizing that may have all been in the drumming patterns of Christner. If Neudi wants to play like Foxe...well, I guess I'll just have to wait and see, but it's going to be a very interesting first listen.

Mystification rules, dumb ass!

Yeah, I realize I'm on the outside looking in with that one. It's not anything I can explain really but when I listen to Mystification...I don't know it usually just doesn't grab me that much. I can hear that there are good riffs, and that same old voice I've always loved, and caustic drumming...but I'd still rather listen to the out and out bizarro-world that is Courts of Chaos.

None of that matters though. Does any part of you really believe this will sound like Mystification, Ed? I used to write that shit off as the typical band stuff "Let's pick one of our most beloved albums and say it sounds like a return to that". But now that I've really considered the impact of a new drummer I'm not so sure.

Mystification is fantastic...certainly better than the two albums following it. A throwback to that would be fantastic, although I agree that seems unlikely. Usually when bands describe something that way it's a pile of bullshit designed to get people to buy it. Still, it's Mark Shelton, so I'm sure it'll be good...just nowhere near as good vocally as MR was in the 80s. His voice is awesome, but his range is shot, and Hellroadie hardly does him justice. I'm sure it will be good, I'm just not sure thrash is the right direction for them unless Shelton miraculously gets some range back or they find a more aggressive secondary vocalist.

That's weird; to my ears, the bulk of the post-reunion material is closer to 'Courts of Chaos' than it is to any of the classic albums, and a vast majority of modern-day MR riffs are thrashier than ever, only these are slower, plodding, somewhat doomy thrash riffs. I mean, there's even a "For Whom the Bell Tolls" homage in "Merchants of Death", among other things! Yes, I'm big on neither CoC nor the post-reunion stuff so far. All those samey stripped-down riffs arranged in overlong and unnecessarily repetitive song structures with strained harsh vocals all over them are holding The Shark back from blowing me away as he used to. There's nothing bad per se in that stuff; none of those albums is staining the band's legacy (on the contrary, with all those self-tributes on them) and there are still great moments here and there... but yeah, the magic never fully came back, in my opinion. 'Voyager' in particular was a big disappointment for me, after reading all the "it's so much more than the 80s stuff" hype. That album is barely good enough to open for its grandpa, 'The Deluge', as far as I'm concerned.

Having said that, 'Playground of the Damned' showed signs of
Shelton looking to refresh his inspiration. Even though I wasn't too convinced by the result, I still salute the effort, and I have hopes that this new album might reconcile me with recent-era Manilla Road, even if it's not quite a 'Mystification, part 2' (which would be both silly to expect and extraordinary to get).

I actually really really liked voyager. I think its one of the best manilla road albums ever. Its so epic and dense and awesome.

Voyager is amazing. A big disappointment? Try one of the best albums of the year it came out. Huge epic viking-hammer of true metal. Personally I like Spiral Castle and Voyager (and the Hellwell album) the best out of any Shelton material...possibly in part because it's the first stuff I was exposed to from him, but eh it's just so much more epic and strange, like the band aged excellently. The 80s stuff is all very good too. They're a very consistent band, but they only reached a greater status with some of the recent material for me.

Manilla Road have so many awesome albums, I think it's safe to say, us fans will never be able to come to a proper consensus as to which is the ultimate MR album.

The strength of Voyager was quite a surprise to me. I mean, yeah I find every one of their albums killer, but a concept album with a dense atmosphere and longwinded epic tracks like these were surprising for an old band. Well, it still had quite some aspects from The Gates of Fire (The Frost Giant's Daughter being some of the best material the band has written) and Spiral Castle (probably my favourite album since the reunion). Spiral Castle was totally odd, epic and had an incredible feel, so good...

And if they keep certain elements of Playground of the Dammed I'll be happy. I think ''Into the Maelstrom'', ''Fire of Asshurbanipal'' and ''Art of War'' are top notch Manilla Road.

Voyager was great and gets probably the most spins of all my Manilla Road albums, the drums have a unique tone to them and the riffs in Conquest and Tomb of the Serpent king are just crushing. The song lengths work well with the epic riffs and overall vibes of the songs if you ask me, which is unique for latter Manilla Road albums. I really enjoy it and Shelton actually pulls off some powerful screams even if at that point in times he was battling with Chronic Laryngitis.

It's all about Tree of Life, baby.

Well, I'm happy for you guys if 'Voyager' & co fulfill your MR needs. It just doesn't do it for me. Believe me, I wish it did.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HsoVhcAE3JM

Trailer for the new album. Sounds pretty good.

Thanks for the link (goofy as fuck clip to go with the music, though). Well, all of those moments sound at the very least pretty good, and about half of them sound plain awesome. It's well worth noting that the drumming was improved by about 250% from the past few albums, thus getting close enough to Randy "The Ninth Wave, Bitch!" Foxe to actually see his back on the horizon, for the first time in way too long. Good!

Having said that, as my main issue with latter-day MR is with song structures and excessive repetition, these super short samples might prove misleading to me. For now, color me hopeful, though.

The ballad (I think third sample) sounds extremely promising! The riffs sound very good aswell, of course. I'm really looking forward to this.

Hey, that trailer was really cool. Love the guitar tone, what with its dusty, vintage sound, and Shelton's vocals sound spot on. Don't know how it'll hold up in the grand scheme of the album, as these are merely odds and ends of the songs, but so far, so good. Also, that high scream at the 3:11 mark was totally unexpected, but it was awesome.

yeahhhhh

Mark your calendars, boys and girls. February's gonna be melting our faces off.

The teaser sounds pretty sweet, and Shelton sounds sufficiently ethereal, but they will never write a song as good as "Necropolis", so there is nothing but disappointment in store for me.

What, that's songs like Manilla Road's Paranoid. Essentially enjoyable, but simplistic and mostly unexciting. They have far, far superior songs on almost every album.

Hell, Divine Victim and Necropolis are the songs that got me into Manilla Road. And they're good songs. But man, I take Astronomica, Dreams of Eschaton, Helicon, Queen of the Black Coast, The Ninth Wave over them any day. That's where the good's at...

Crystal Logic is certainly awesome, however, when I think Manilla Road, I immediately think of what came after that album.

What? "Necropolis" is a classic, but they've got plenty of other ones too! Even on that very album you have the title track "Crystal Logic" and the great "Dreams of Eschaton," among the other very good tunes. Not to mention the rest of their catalog...

Yep. "Necropolis" is a fantastic song, but if there's one thing MR is definitely not, it's a one-hit wonder.

Yeah, me too. I mean, Crystal Logic is without doubt one of their best albums, but I think the Foxe era albums certainly the ones that really established their signature sound. Sure, Crystal Logic is noticeably more metallic than its predecessors (especially Mark... and Invasion); but the snappy (occasionally poppy!) NWOBHM-ish tendencies are something they'd drop pretty shortly after that album (alright, 'Heavy Metal to the World' withstanding). The murkier waters of Open the Gates and The Deluge are, to my mind, the most "classic" sounding Manilla Road records. That's not to say that either is necessarily a stronger record than Crystal Logic, but they do have the all elements I associate with MR's signature sound whereas they were, in places, still finding themselves on Crystal Logic. Hell, between the Crystal Logic and Open the Gates they went through another sort of mini sonic revolution with the introduction of Randy Foxe's crazy drumming and Shark becoming an even wilder guitarist (I guess the fact that he acquired that BC Rich with a floyd rose really helped him go crazy on all those leads).

That said, I do still think Crystal Logic might be the best starting point with that band (hell, it worked for me).

I have a soft spot for "Atlantis Rising" as it was one of the first I heard from the band but after back tracking, "Open The Gates" and yes, Jonpo, "Mystification" are the "classic" MR albums for me.

Maybe everyone knew this already, but I just recently read Mark and Hellroadie discussing it in an interview: Atlantis Rising was cobbled together from tracks they already had recorded for the "SHARK" project. And apparently Hellroadie played a lot of the drums originally. Thought that was a neat bit of trivia.

It really is like that! Sometimes I prefer the 'classic' albums like Open the Gates and Mystification, sometimes the early stuff like Mark of the Beast and Metal, and sometimes the modern stuff like Spiral Castle and Gates of Fire. Manilla Road is propably the most consistent band ever.

I hope the CD reissue of Metal comes out close to the release of Mysterium. I need that (the new Metal) to replace my 2CD version of Invasion/Metal (which is already awesome, but I really need that new artwork)

Looks like Shadow Kingdom Records are reissuing Spiral Castle before Metal. That sucks, but I'll take the additional song (Throne Of Lies).

It comes out March 2013, a month after Mysterium releases.

throne of lies very well might be the "worst" MR song but they still fail at being bad when that song gets properly underway.

What, you don't like the awesome riff that consitutes 99% of Throne of Lies?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nr8zChJKd3s

Tellin' me lies, tellin' me