SKR is streaming a song from Mysterium! Check it out! The CD is up for pre-order, too.

http://shadowkingdomrecords.bandcamp.com/album/mysterium

Were the vocals that you hated on Playground Hellroadie's or Mark's? Because Mark is quite old now and can't sing like he used to, so his voice sounds old, wise, and weary. Hellroadie, however, does seem to be trying to attain his own vocal identity, and doesn't seem quite as content imitating Mark from 20 years ago. I know, however, that some MR fans don't like his voice.

I've read that Mark and Hellroadie pretty much share the vocals 50/50 on Mysterium.

Pros: The return to somewhat reasonable track lengths is a good thing. Since 'Atlantis Rising', anything shorter than 7-8 minutes was either an interlude or apparently to be considered a "short" number, whereas in the godly years (83-89), even the "epics" often clocked in at under 6 minutes, and that was more than sufficient. This here song is no "epic", it's just a standard song and 2'45" would have been an even better length for its contents, but 4'05" might mean Mark finally noticed longer and more repetitive is not better.

Cons: Others have mentioned the main issues already, notably failsafe and MARSDUDE, but I'll be a bit more blunt.

The riffing is generic. 2 riffs, one of which barely even qualifies as a riff (the 2-chords,-a-bar-each passage used as chorus, interlude and bridge); the main riff is a pedestrian collage from the exact same "brooding" building blocks Mark's been limiting himself to for almost every post-2000 riff, especially on 'Atantlis Rising', 'Spiral Castle' and 'Voyager'. Meh. Whatever happened to constantly evolving and growing riffs that tell a poignant, unique story as they roll?

HellRoadie disappoints. Yeah, of course this is entirely sung by HellRoadie, and he sounds farther removed from Shelton than ever. Completely lost the nasal quality to his clean vocals, but forgot to replace it with anything special. He sounds okay, but not on par with the unique, awesome and highly emotional vocals MR has used us to. Also, every vocal line finishes flat as fuck.

Nice drumming, Phil Rudd. So, they said this new German drummer had accepted the challenge of bringing back Randy Foxe's magic, overwhelmingly awesome and busy drumming style. Well, he failed very, very hard. This song's drumming is every bit as unsuitable for Manilla Road as that of every post-reunion album, unfortunately. Basic beats that merely follow the riffs while being as discreet and economical as possible, and little to no rolls or fills, let alone vibrant and powerful ones like Foxe's.

The production is both modern-cold and demo-noisy. Fuzzy and overcompressed guitar tone, overmixed vocals with far too much reverb (especially considering they're nothing spectacular), overmixed bass (by the way, the bass lines match the drums, I'm afraid: not only do they fail to match 'Mystification', they're leagues behind 'Spiral Castle' as well), papier-mâché snare, tom and bass drums with digital-effect sounding cymbals... And the overall result doesn't sound cohesive, organic or warm at all.

Had this been a Manilla Road worship band, I would have thought "Yeah, that's not too bad, kids". Considering this is sold as the actual Manilla Road, and somewhat presented as a back-to-the-roots effort, I say "Sorry, guys, I'll spin 'Mystification' again now, thank you very much for trying, though. Lotsa love, Legend."

He's the resident mallcore drone, just consider his opinion on anything void.

You're not necessarily wrong about any of this stuff, though I do disagree with the severity of your opinions (except the drumming, there are clearly lots of fills and rolls, listen to it again).

The atmosphere

Legend Maker, you are exaggerating some with your comments on recent Road stuff. [...] Seems to me that you're struggling for nice things to say about this new track, which is sad indeed.

I haven't even been able to listen to the song yet.

can we really pretend that Scott Parks was a staggeringly busy player anyway?

As for the people who complained about the riffs and the songwriting, I really don't know what you were looking for here. I though it was really good.

I guess they were expecting an epic or something. Wait for the title track, people. That one should be fuckin' epic.

would it be crazy to say that there are some Omen vibes to be found in that piece? Particularly in those galloping, crushing riffs..... [...] maybe it's more the feeling of the music than the actual playing, but I'm pretty sure that I get some Omen vibes from it.

Not to get technical on your ass, dude (I couldn't if I wanted to), but I don't think there's a single gallop in that song. The main riff has some syncopated parts, but no gallop; not to my ears at least. That aside, I can't find a single thing that would evoke Omen in that song either. Maybe you have later Omen in mind?

Anyone see the new artwork for the reissue of "Metal"?



http://www.hrrecords.de/high_roller/sit ... php?id=302

OCTOBER 19th

Can't wait.

Anybody heard it yet?

WOW, that looks like total shit.

(fanboyism prevailing)

Uhhh, have you seen the original? This looks much better.

Jokes aside, I'm actually listening to it for real this time, so I can have a bit more validity in saying if sucks or not. I'm still just on the first track, which I've made clear that I think it awful, so the rest of this really had better blow me away.

I got a copy of the original from Mark when I visited him in Wichita in 1999 so yeah, I've seen it.

Note I think this album sounds ok, garagey but solid enough, Playground is the one I feel disdain towards.