MANILLA ROAD — Spiral Castle

MetalMusicArchives.com — the ultimate metal music online community, from the creators of progarchives.com

MANILLA ROAD - Spiral Castle cover
4.19 | 11 ratings | 2 reviews
Buy this album from MMA partners

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

Information missing - contribute to MMA, by filling this information using the left menu member zone link "Edit album infos". This function is only available to MMA Collabs.

Thanks to Vehemency for the updates

Buy MANILLA ROAD - SPIRAL CASTLE music

More places to buy metal & MANILLA ROAD music

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

Write/edit review

You must be logged in to write or edit review

MMA TOP 5 Metal ALBUMS

Rating by members, ranked by custom algorithm
Albums with 30 ratings and more
Master of Puppets Thrash Metal
METALLICA
Buy this album from our partners
Paranoid Heavy Metal
BLACK SABBATH
Buy this album from our partners
Moving Pictures Hard Rock
RUSH
Buy this album from our partners
Powerslave NWoBHM
IRON MAIDEN
Buy this album from our partners
Rising Heavy Metal
RAINBOW
Buy this album from our partners

New Metal Artists

New Metal Releases

Hin helga kvöl Atmospheric Sludge Metal
SÓLSTAFIR
Buy this album from MMA partners
The Cycles of Suffering Black Metal
BURIAL OATH
Buy this album from MMA partners
Facilis Descensus Averno Death Metal
SAEVUS FINIS
Buy this album from MMA partners
Merciless Crossover Thrash
BODY COUNT
Buy this album from MMA partners
More new releases

New Metal Online Videos

More videos

New MMA Metal Forum Topics

More in the forums

New Site interactions

More...

Latest Metal News

members-submitted

More in the forums

Social Media

Follow us