Metal is Manilla Road's second album, though the album we know today as Mark of the Beast was originally created a year earlier but not officially released until 2002. If you are like me and think Crystal Logic is the best Manilla Road album, then Metal is going to be right up your alley. Like its successor, Metal features songwriting that is in that transition mode between the progressive style of the band's debut and the more straight-up epic stuff of later works like The Deluge and Mystification. Shadow Kingdom Records, Manilla Road's current label, is re-issuing Metal to the masses with some new artwork but otherwise essentially the same as the original. The sound is paper-thin and somewhat two-dimensional but, keep in mind, this is a 3-piece band and an analog recording. It is clear there are no over-dubs just by listening to the song "Metal" where Scott Park's bass takes up the rhythm guitar part when Mark "The Shark" Shelton rips into his solo. A lot of the music on Metal has an almost upbeat and accessible sound like a lot of the NWOBHM stuff that was around at the same time. Even songs with "epic" titles like "Queen of the Black Coast," based on a Robert E. Howard story, are not as dark as you might expect. Listening to Metal is not unlike listening to an early Rush album, but that hardly means it isn't Heavy Metal, because it most definitely is.
I'm a traditional and NWOBHM fan, so this stuff really appeals to me and I think Metal is fantastic, second only to Crystal Logic in the Manilla Road canon. Fans of the more epic stuff may not get as much out of it, but it is still an essential release for the unique Manilla Road sound.
