Mark of the Beast

One year ago today (July 27th) metal lost one of its most ardent and valiant warriors in Mark “The Shark” Shelton. Mark’s impact on the metal underground cannot be understated. He was a passionate musician who cared deeply for both the music and the people. His career with Manilla Road spanned four decades and nearly twenty remarkable records. Like many, I’ve taken the year since his tragic death to more deeply reflect on Manilla Road’s career. In doing so, I’ve found a much deeper appreciation for eras of the band that I had mostly ignored in favor of their classics. In particular, Mark of the Beast has resonated with me, leaving me wondering why I didn’t appreciate it as much before.

Manilla Road are known for their brand of epic heavy metal that really kicked off with Crystal Logic, but their sound before that was much more firmly rooted in a progressive rock offshoot known as space rock. From the band’s inception in 1977 all the way through to 1981, they played a metal-tinged space rock that is notably different than the Manilla Road sound that we’re so familiar with now. Manilla Road’s debut album, Invasion, came out in 1980 and their next official album release was the more straightforward Metal in 1982. However, in between the recording and release of these two albums, they wrote an entire album originally titled Dreams of Eschaton that was intended for a 1981 release, but it was deemed unsatisfactory by the band and shelved. The songs floated around as low quality bootlegs for over twenty years in the metal underground before eventually being revisited. Its proper release came in 2002, when Monster Records cleaned up the masters and finally reissued the songs professionally under a new album name: Mark of the Beast.

My first listen of the album came a few years after my introduction to Manilla Road. At this point in time, I was really only familiar with the band’s “classic run” of four records starting with Crystal Logic and ending with Mystification. I had just begun exploring the band’s huge catalog and I had listened to other albums here and there. While looking for my next Manilla Road album to try, Mark of the Beast’s brilliant artwork, licensed from Jim Fitzpatrick, caught my eye. The vibrant colors, stark lines, and the calm sense of triumph – it was all so captivating and I immediately went searching for it. I don’t think I was really prepared for what I heard and I certainly wasn’t in the right mood for it to click. I enjoyed it, but nothing really stuck with me – I visited the album maybe once a year at most after that. After Mark’s death, I visited the entirety of Manilla Road’s discography several times over and there was something about Mark of the Beast that just clicked with me in a way that it hadn’t previously.

The emotions and ideas behind the album suddenly made a lot more sense. Musically, Mark of the Beast is the logical stepping stone in the evolution of Manilla Road’s music. Its sound is deeply entrenched in space rock just like Invasion and Underground, but the riffs are heavier and a bit closer to what we get with Metal and Crystal Logic. Given Manilla Road were still trying to find their legs, the quality of musicianship displayed on the album is surprising. Mark’s vocals, at times smooth and dream-like and others aggressive, are among the best he’s ever done and lift the album up. The tracks are generally long and sprawling with some hitting harder than others, but they cycle through a number of different emotions and each track builds upon a central theme. By the end of the album’s hour long run time, you’ll feel like you’ve gone through the mystical journey right there with them.

While Mark Shelton wasn’t particularly fond of this record, it stands as a remarkably unique and underappreciated piece of Manilla Road’s history. Mark of the Beast has been my reprieve in the last year. After a long work week, or an emotionally taxing day, or whenever I just feel the need to relax, Mark of the Beast has been my back drop. It’s so easy to just close my eyes and let the waves of music take over.

Album rating: 95/100

Favorite track: Mark of the Beast

Originally written for RideIntoGlory.com

Manilla Road started in the 70s as some sort of garage rock band, from what I understand, but even from the earliest material we have - the debut and After Midnight Live - I'm not sure which songs were actually written first - it's clear that they weren't interest in the mainstream or commercial success - they were interested in writing compelling, unique, epic music that stood out from other bands and genres. Their first album wasn't quite metal - but then, in 1980, there was hardly a whole lot of metal floating around. Their next album - which would eventually be remastered and released as this album, Mark of the Beast - went in a very different direction; as different from Invasion as Metal would be, but in its own way. Soft, psychedelic, and relaxed, it shows Shelton and co. in a way we never really see them anywhere else - sure, there are glimmers of it in some later tracks like "Forbidden Zone", "Dragon Star", and a bit more prevalently in Spiral Castle with tracks like "Seven Trumpets" and the middle section of "Merchants of Death", but never quite attaining the young, carefree atmosphere present here, and never for an entire album.

The lineup here was the one that was on all of Manilla Road's early releases, up through 1983's Crystal Logic - frontman and driving force of the band, Mark Shelton, on guitars and vocals; Scott Park on bass; and Rick Fisher on drums. All aspects of this release are surprisingly mature for a four-year-old band who were venturing into brand-new, completely unknown musical territory, especially considering how random and amateur their debut sounded - not to say it was bad, but it definitely didn't approach the level of meticulousness and talent displayed on Mark of the Beast - a bit more pedestrian, I guess. Shelton's vocals sound absolutely fantastic - aggressive when necessary, soft and mysterious at other times. It's a bit sad that he didn't continue in this style - I'm not sure why he felt he had to change his voice - maybe to sound more "metal", I don't know - on the following release, but I daresay he never sounded this good again. Don't get me wrong - from Crystal Logic through Voyager his vocals are excellent, and he may not pull of the high shrieks of The Courts of Chaos or the raspy growls of Out of the Abyss here, but his charisma is pretty much unbeatable. Park and Fisher are obviously competent, and sometimes Park's bass lines even stand out enough to notice, but for the most part they're merely there; Shelton is clearly the star of this show, be it with his outstanding vocals or hauntingly strange riffs.

The production is excellent, given that the original recording is from 1981 - if you manage to find tracks from the original demo, you can immediately tell the difference - which is a very pleasant surprise. Usually remasters either make an older album sound more watered down and modern, or don't do very much to help the original production, but the one here is about as good as you could possibly expect given the circumstances. Whoever from Monster Records remastered this, they did a damn good job. Of course, the most important part of any album is the songwriting. Shelton could be at the top of his game, Rick and Scott following along perfectly, the best production job in the world given to it, and it could still suck. Thankfully, that's not the case here. Not every song is a classic, but given what they had to work with, it's pretty impressive. The songs fall more or less into two major categories: chill, laid-back, likely drug-induced softer numbers, and more straightforward rockers.

The former category consists of the title track, "Court of Avalon", "Dream Sequence/Time Trap", "Venusian Sea", and "Triumvirate". This category is definitely of higher quality than the rockers, every song in it being top-notch epics, with four of them at least seven minutes long. The best of the bunch is probably the magnificent title track, which opens the album with an ominous, mystical riff and doesn't lose any atmosphere throughout the song. "Court of Avalon" is more upbeat, with a feeling of being transported to some beneficent, magical realm of light. "Dream Sequence" and "Time Trap" are more in the vein of the title track, with an opening riff that heavily reminds me of dream pop, specifically Alison's Halo - although this song was written at least ten years before any of their material. At times it's dissonant, even disturbing, but more mystical than anything else. Some of the vocal effects are pretty cool, like the end of "Dream Sequence" or the pitch-shifted repetition of "TIME TRAP". The track has a very ancient feel to it, reminiscent of "Return of the Old Ones", or pretty much anything on Spiral Castle. "Venusian Sea" is a bit like "Court of Avalon" with a placid, warm, contented feel that evokes a very nautical feeling, which of course is intentional and quite fitting to the lyrical content. It reminds me of "Metal" from the following album at times. "Triumvirate" is a very strange song, with alternating hard rock and soft, clean passages. It's very good though, sort of a multi-part epic like those that would come on the following albums ("Cage of Mirrors", "Dreams of Eschaton", "The Books of Skelos, etc.). It features some really cool jamming as well as some haunting riffs...you really need to just listen to it to understand, it's a monster of a song, in the best way possible.

The rocking category is still pretty solid, if not up to par with the clean epics. "Avatar" is certainly the best in this category, and hardly a straightforward song - at nine and a half minutes, it's one of the two longest songs on the album. It starts off with a weird, sci-fi sounding synth, then breaks into a sweet, galloping riff that comprises the main chorus. While even this song isn't quite metal, it's definitely not hard to see what direction they were headed toward. The other rockers are more straightforward and generic, although not terrible. "Black Lotus" is pretty bland and pedestrian, the only thing remarkable is the name, which always makes me chuckle (I'm an active player of Magic: the Gathering. "Teacher" is better, although not by a whole lot, with some catchy sections but not a whole lot going on. "Aftershock", thankfully, is very good - the opening riff is heavy as fuck for 1981, and the opening line is "The earth she quakes as she masturbates"! Pure gold as far as I'm concerned. It's definitely not as good as any of the epics, but it's still very solid.

Overall, the only thing that really bugs me about this album is that Shelton never wanted to pursue this direction any further. While it may not be as "metallic" as Metal, it's definitely more epic, and of a lot better quality. I can't say I'm not happy with the way things turned out - Shelton's brought us several classics in the last three decades - but it does just make you wonder what could have been sometimes. Well, all we can do is appreciate this album and smile, and maybe do a double take in amazement at how many genres Shelton can do masterfully on the first try.

Artists can be strange characters with regard to their own work. Seldom does anybody else truly understand the circumstances surrounding creation and the tribulations that one must go through in order to hone a work to a point that is satisfactory. The trials of the creator can be magnified exponentially when more than one person is involved in the process. Disagreements in direction, in basic ideas and in ideology are almost inevitable, and it is safe to say that anybody who has been in a serious band has gone through this to some degree. It does seem, however, that often the slow progress toward completion results in a sense of fatigue and boredom, and this can lead to the release of material that doesn't quite meet with the original vision, or else that vision has changed over time to encompass something completely different. How often does a song-writer listen to something that's just been mixed, shake his head tiredly and mumble, "well, it's good enough to pass muster"? More often than some might suppose, I wager.

In my review for Manilla Road's debut album, "Invasion", I made a comparison to Judas Priest's often-neglected 1974 disc, "Rocka Rolla". Both bands were young, inexperienced, and not altogether certain where they would be going with their music in the future. In both cases, what you hear in the earliest material is a band playing in more rock territory: Judas priest tinkering with moody, psychedelic sounds that were prevalent and contemporary in the mid-1970s; Manilla Road delving into a sound that was, arguably, already "retro" and replaced in the public favour with slick and polished arena rock. Both bands could have gone any number of ways after their debut, but chose the path of heaviness and metal strength.

Or did they? Manilla Road had written a hell of a lot of songs by 1982, many of which never even made the cut of any studio recording. It became apparent, however, that by the aforementioned year, when the aptly titled "Metal" was released, Manilla Road, and most importantly, main songwriter, guitarist, vocalist and lyricist Mark Shelton, had decided roughly where he wanted to take his band, and that decision would mark the path they would tread for the decades to come. In "Mark of the Beast", however, we have what amounts to a true gem ... a genuine, undeniably "lost" album; an album that actually treads an entirely different path, one that Manilla Road deliberately chose not to explore further.

When speaking to Mark Shelton about the earliest days of Manilla Road, it became clear to me that he wasn't all that enthused about much of what his band created in the beginning. He was absolutely full of talk about the latest album, about the new band members, about recent live shows, about his current sources of mythological inspiration ... but although he clearly remembered the late 1970s and early 80s with fondness, he viewed this as a period in which his own skills as an artist were fledgling and sometimes led to poor decisions. It was clear that he didn't much want to talk about "Invasion", "Metal", or even "Crystal Logic", but he did give me his favourite songs from every Road album up until that time .. every album, that is, except the forgotten "Mark of the Beast".

This album wasn't exactly unearthed for the first time when Monster Records finally made it available to the public in 2003. Unfortunately, a Greek metal magazine had circulated a bootleg copy of what would have been half of the album as much as ten years before, so some of these songs had a legendary reputation already. I say "unfortunately", because however the tape for this bootleg release was obtained, the sound quality was simply atrocious; nobody could possibly have envisioned any clasic coming out of such a recording at that time, no matter how good the songs were. One thing Mr. Shelton did concede to me was that the reason "Mark of the Beast" was finally released was that people kept bothering and bothering him about it, and finally he simply had to give in. I'm sure that that bootleg, as crappy as it really was, helped to bring this to fruition, because without it I imagine very few people would have even known about the tape's existence, and Shelton would certainly not have been inspired to do anything with it without his fans yammering about it all the time! SO, Monster received Shelton's original tape, which was probably abandoned in a dusty, cobwebbed basement somewhere for over twenty years. They cleaned it up considerably, so that the only trace of degredation remaining in the sound was a bit of distortion that masked some of the high frequencies, rendering cymbal hits and some sibilant vocal sounds just a bit washy and crackly, something you only really notice periodically. They also put together a really nice package, complete with pictures of the early Manilla Road line-up playing gigs and some liner notes. Apparently, the LP looks absolutely gorgeous.

Finally, what I'm really here to talk about, the music! I hate to differ strongly with Mark Shelton's opinion, but I must say that this is excellent and in fact right up among my favourite Manilla Road albums. Way back in 2002 when I reviewed my first Manilla Road album, "Out of the Abyss", I made the comment that they weren't really a favourite band, which is ironic in retrospect as in the intervening years Manilla Road has become *the* favourite metal band for me. I love every one of their albums to some degree, but two or three I'd definitely count as being weaker than the others. Despite being scrapped as unsatisfactory in 1981 and resurrected nearly as an afterthought, "Mark of the Beast" is simply far from one of them. What we are given here is Manilla Road at their least metallic, slowest and most psychedelic. Shelton hinted that the band dropped a lot of acid in the early days, and listening to this, I can certainly believe that songs like "Venusian Sea", "The Avatar" and "The Black Lotus" were musically and lyrically inspired in some manner by the experience of psychedelic drugs, although they're never overtly mentioned in any way. The compositions are long, sprawling pieces full of clean guitars, mysterious lyrics and endless, howling guitar solos in Shelton's signature style, which wasn't quite the melodic mastery it has become today, but which was still undeniably replete with emotion and played with an unsurpassable conviction. The first song, which happens to be the album's eponimous track, has two spectacular solos, the second of which in particular gives me gooseflesh by way of its sheer note-bending madness, spiralling up into a screaming demonic frenzy before suddenly being extinguished...and that's just the beginning!

"Mark of the Beast" .. what a way to begin the album. This, like many of the other tracks here, surpasses the nine-minute mark and isn't a particularly heavy song in terms of distortion used, but I swear, it is one of the darkest and moodiest pieces Manilla Road ever recorded. Conceptually, it reminds me a little of "Cage of Mirrors" from the following album: a man has tampered with evil forces and now must face the consequences for his actions. The guitars in this piece are marvelous, double-tracked (I think) and playing off of each other beautifully while making nice use of both the volume knob to create swells in dynamics and some really tasteful harmonics. It's played entirely cleanly except for the aforementioned shrieking, mad solos, which is something you'll have to get used to on this record. . This is one of the songs where the sound is just a little bit distorted, so Mark's vocals come across slightly remote and hissy, as though they were coming through an answering machine tape. That's not really as bad as it sounds though and believe it or not, it helps create a ghostly effect (ok, the echo and delay added to the vocal track in this piece contributes to this, too). There's a sort of chorus bit where Shelton sings, "I'm fightin' .. the mark of the beaaaast!" and ends on this high, keening note that just sounds so eery and anguished. Hell, there's so much on offer here that's unlike anything else Manilla Road has ever done, and I really can't express enough how much it pleases me to hear it!

"The Court of Avalon" has an almost identical tempo to the title track, and is led into exquisitely by some high, chiming chords and a switch into a really gentle, major key. This segue from the opressively dark first song is really one of my favourite things about the album, and the songs all do seem to flow together extremely well. "Court of Avalon" is certainly a bit more uplifting, and manages to be extremely hypnotic with two broken chords picked back and forth to create a dreamy, almost oceanic mood. The song does get heavier toward the end, with some really passionate, roaring vocals and a gloriously ponderous riff in the Sabbath tradition.

It's with "The Avatar" that we finally hear some heaviness in the more conventional sense, and this will assure listeners that there is definitely some metal to be heard on this album. The opening here takes my breath away, as Shelton plays quiet but rumblingly fuzzy and distorted chords on his guitar, doing those volume swells he's so fond of on this recording to generate a bowed-like effect. Then, he begins to sing, and if you haven't noticed before, it is during this nearly accapela moment that it really hits you that .. damn, Mark Shelton can really, really sing well. While this might not be a surprise to real Manilla Road fans, the vocals always tend to be a hurdle for the unitiated and Shelton is not exactly renouned as one of the great bards of heavy metal, at least when it comes to his distinctive wails and semi-melodic growls. While the singing on "Mark of the Beast" isn't far off from other Manilla Road work from the first era (which I define as having ended after "Crystal Logic"), the point here is that the slower, less riff-based music really gives his voice a chance to take the spotlight sometimes and express a slew of emotions throughout the record: passionate triumphant, dreamy longing, confusion and outright anguish. At any rate, "The Avatar" sounds like 70s Black Sabbath, complete with some almost Bill Ward-like grooves from Rick Fisher, whose understated but notable talents always seem overshadowed by those of Randy Thrasher just because the latter was a lot wilder and faster. Speaking of Black Sabbath, most of the solos here are actually two slightly different tracks playing simultaneously, which seems a definite nod to early Iommi, though only a few of the songs bare heavy Sabbathian resemblences in the riffing and mood.

The pace of almost every song here is quite steadily slow, though I wouldn't exactly call this doom. Nevertheless, there are a couple of outright rockers to be heard that take a little longer to grow on the listener despite their comparatively short length and immediate catchiness (or at least, that seemed the case for me). They do break up the mood a bit, and the two of them are placed back to back about halfway through the album, a nice touch if you ask me. "The Teacher" is the best on here, without a doubt, and would have been right at home on "Crystal Logic". The verse riff here just utterly rules, and Shelton snarls out the lyrics with impressive conviction and strength, while using a clean, smoothe voice for what is almost the song's chorus (Manilla Road's structures are always just a little bit unconventional). The lyrics are an exhortation but rather positive, and at first glance might even be inspired by Christianity, though they're cryptic enough that it's difficult to say this for certain. "Black Lotus" on the other hand is the most straightforward song here, and turns out to be rather fun. I can't quite figure out what is going on with the lyrics, but the plaintive refrain of "help me please / I’m on my knees / the lotus breeze / has got a hold on me" always puts a grin on my face, and the brazenly rock 'n' roll riff consistently results in me lunging about the room while head-banging furiously.

I am really struggling to resist the temptation to talk about every song here, because they're all noteworthy, with the possible exception of the keyboard/vocal interlude "Dream Sequence". The sound suddenly seems to get a hell of a lot better for "Time Trap", and that's a great thing as we get one of the strongest vocal performances here in a whole slew of incredible deliveries. The clean part of this song, which makes up roughly the entire first half, is probably one of the most gorgeously beautiful things Manilla Road has ever written; and Mark sounds so sad and woeful my eyes nearly prickle every time I hear it! I'm not so crazy about the pitch-shifted "time .. trap .. time .. trap" bit, but ah well, nobody's perfect, not even this band.

You know what the most insane thing about this album is? I think the band saved the best material for the last two tracks! "Venusian Sea" and "Triumvirate" are, in combination, almost too much to handle. The former is unrepentently vocal-led and built around a simple clean guitar pattern, and the entire piece is one huge crescendo, with the vocal lines and melody repeating and growing stronger and stronger, until everything resolves into a soaring, exquisite moment of majesty. It's just a beautiful piece of music, and I don't think anybody in the world would be able to deny it. "Triumvirate", on the other hand, is the closing statement, the perfect way to end off the album as it seems to be a song about finally overcoming adversity and existential ennui by creating art. It certainly seems to be a song about the band itself, and is a metal anthem of sorts (yes, it gets pretty heavy and huge during the chorus parts), but delivered with Manilla Road's usual subtlety and taste when it comes to such things. This one has a great melody that's fantastic for singing along with, and the glorious feeling it brings is almost unparalleled. After the final chord and vocal line have echoed away into the distance, a sonorous voice intones the lines: "With fire and fury, we sing the song / We've seen the dreams of Eschaton."

And it's over. What a journey! I have nothing more to say, except to voice grattitude toward the guy behind Monster Records for writing Mark Shelton when he was fifteen years old, asking him if he had any songs lying around that were "like "The Empire" from "Invasion"! Shelton's response was to send him this entire record on tape. What a cool story. Now that it's finally available to everyone, there's no reason for any fan of ancient, mystical psychedelic rock and metal not to have this, and adore it.

This is the 'lost' Manilla Road album, originally entitled "Dreams Of Eschaton". Recorded in 1981 and meant to be the second release after the debut EP "Invasion", the band decided that the recordings (production and performance-wise) were not good enough to release and scrapped them. With the modern resurge of interest in Manilla Road and the re-pressing of all their back catalog, the band finally gave permission for Monster Records to officially release these prehistoric tracks as "Mark Of The Beast".

I have previously said that "Spiral Castle" is the weirdest MR album, but it doesn't hold a candle to this one. "Mark-" sounds like the band that recorded that album got really, really stoned and recorded this one. I can see why the band decided this was not the direction they wanted to go in, as this is a big step away from the straight-up rock/metal of their debut EP. "Mark Of The Beast" is over an hour of wah-fueled 70's art-rock that sounds much more like ooooooold Rush or even Blue Oyster Cult, but even trippier. There are long acoustical passages and the songs in general are slow, mellow, and rather psychedelic. Starting with the epic murmur of the title cut, this album meanders through the entirely acoustic "Court Of Avalon" before we get to the slightly rockier "Avatar". As a whole this album never picks up any kind of speed, all the way through to the Nazareth-styled noodle "Venusian Sea".

Now just because this is weird and retro does not mean it isn't way cool, you just can't come into this CD expecting the kind of stomping, pedal-to-the-metal riff attacks the 'Road showed off on "Crystal Logic" and later albums. This is very 70's and very laid back, but it is still really cool. If you enjoy the band's slower and more inaccessible material, then this will be something you'll like, but it needs time. This album is one of those where you can listen to it ten times the day you get it and nothing will stick, but a month later you'll play it again and know every song as if you've always known them.

Fans of exclusively modern metal will not get this, and even fans of Manilla Road's more aggressive music will probably run screaming. But this is a strange yet spellbinding album, full of long, long songs filled with odd moments of beauty and haunting melody. Of all MR albums I have to say this is the least accessible, and yet, once you tune into it, this is the most affecting and transporting. It may take a long while to get into, but it is the most worth the effort. I cannot recommend this for the casual fan or mainstream metal fans, but if the description of this CD sounds interesting, then you might well give it a chance. It's worth it.

Originally written for www.metalcrypt.com

Mark Of The Beast is the album that was supposed to be released after the debut Invasion but that for various reasons didn't officially see daylight until 2002 (it did exist as a bootleg release though, named Dreams Of Eschaton). Apparently Shark & Co wasn't pleased with the material, why on Earth, I have no idea because this is really killer stuff!

Musically this is somewhere between Invasion and Metal (it was recorded 1981 between mentioned albums). It has some of the experimental and psychedelic atmosphere of Invasion but it has more concrete directions than the debut. It has the heaviness of the release Metal (although, it's still more of a hybrid of 70's Hard Rock and Heavy Metal than actual Metal) and it's definitely epic, with the songs resembling The Empire from the debut and Cage Of Mirrors from Metal. Most songs range from 6 to 9 minutes which helps to build up that epic feeling. The music has similarities to RUSH's Caress Of Steel, JUDAS PRIEST's Rocka Rolla and WISHBONE ASH's Argus. The riffs and leads are, of course, 70's Hard Rock oriented and offer plenty of changes from softer bits to guitar-frenzy making it a bit hard to follow at first but after around 5-10 spins the songs will sink into your mind for all eternity. The cuts offer a plethora of variety, from the epic pieces like the title track and Avatar to soft and emotional balladic songs like Court Of Avalon, Time Trap and Venusian Sea to a dreamy sequence (it's titled Dream Sequence) to pure Hard Rock tracks like Black Lotus and Aftershock. Shelton's vocal performance is stronger than on the debut, and he never has sounded as emotional as on this release, just listen to the track Time Trap.

As this was recorded back in '81 it obviously doesn't sound especially modern (and this is only a good thing, I hate the cold, sterile, emotionless modern production which makes all music sound the same), the tapes were remastered by Monster Records and the sound is excellent, the riffs are sharp and the bass is crushingly audible but at the same time the overall impression is somewhat “vintage“ and dirty without being too muddy. Great work with other words.

If you're looking for sing-along-friendly choruses, happy-poppy Flower Metal tunes and sugar-coated keyboard riffs, then this is nothing for you, move along. If you on the other hand like early RUSH, WISHBONE ASH, DARK QUARTERER, HAWKWIND, BLUE CHEER, BLACK SABBATH and you enjoy epic, dark and complex progressive riffs mixed with some psychedelic dreamy elements, then this is right up your alley. Mark Of The Beast, simply put, offers the finest blend of dark 70's Progressive Hard Rock and early bluesy Metal.