MANILLA ROAD — Spiral Castle

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MANILLA ROAD - Spiral Castle cover
4.19 | 11 ratings | 2 reviews
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Album · 2002

Filed under Heavy Metal
By MANILLA ROAD

Tracklist

1. Gateway to the Sphere (2:30)
2. Spiral Castle (8:26)
3. Shadow (4:23)
4. Seven Trumpets (5:19)
5. Merchants of Death (10:53)
6. Born Upon the Soul (7:17)
7. Sands of Time (7:40)
8. Throne of Lies (6:27)

Total Time: 52:57

Line-up/Musicians

- Mark Shelton / Vocals, Guitars
- Mark Anderson / Bass
- Scott Peters / Drums
- Bryan Patrick / Vocals

About this release

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MANILLA ROAD SPIRAL CASTLE reviews

Specialists/collaborators reviews

Warthur
Rather than keeping going with business as usual for this second album of the Manilla Road return, Mark the Shark and his collaborators instead turn in one of the most unusual Manilla Road albums to date, with their traditional heavy metal style taking on a darker aesthetic and production reminiscent of more extreme metal styles and Mark offering up extensive guitar solos, touching on 1970s psychedelic and progressive stylings.

It isn't a full dive into heavy psych or prog metal, but it's at least more of a nod in that direction than Manilla Road have attempted at any time since their Mark of the Beast/Dreams of Eschaton demo, so it rather makes sense that the official release of that material happened in the same year as this came out. Even then, though, Spiral Castle sounds different from anything Manilla Road had done before, whilst still feeling distinctly like Manilla Road - a clever trick that demonstrates that their post-2001 resurrection was more than a simple nostalgia act.
Time Signature
Merchant of death...

Genre: traditional heavy metal

This is old school, but there is a certain darkness and sense of brutality to it that one normally did not find in the traditional heavy metal of the 1980s, but which may be traced back to the darker proto-metal of the 1970s such as early Black Sabbath and early Judas Priest.

The guitars have a dark, fuzzy and dirty sound and a lot of the riffage is simple and heavy in an almost doom-like fashion. There are some interesting and semi-complex things on this album, to be sure, and even some guitar figures that remind me of 70s progressive rock.

There is some really good stuff on this album - the only thing is that one may have to get used to the vocals and the complete disregard of what is trendy and in.

I would recommend this album to fans of proto-metal, traditional heavy metal and doom metal. I think that some fans of the more extreme types of metal may like this album too.

Members reviews

No MANILLA ROAD SPIRAL CASTLE reviews posted by members yet.

Ratings only

  • karolcia
  • GWLHM76
  • Psydye
  • ian
  • Marsbergen
  • Pintos
  • Colt
  • Nergal131
  • Vehemency

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