Hail to all ye Brethren of the Hammer,

Shark here with another update about Manilla Road goings on and website happenings. First of all I’m sure most of you know that our new album The Blessed Curse / After The Muse has been released on CD. I am told that the LP release date will be April 2nd 2015. So that is not that far off now. This delay has been due to the rise in demand for LPs again and the shortage of pressing plants that actually press albums anymore. Good to see the LP making a bit of a comeback. Anyway it seems most of the reviews of The Blessed Curse so far are really great. Thanks to all of you who have bought it and have provided us with positive feedback. It really is a proud moment for Manilla Road with this release. This new album can be purchased right here at this website on our merchandise page. We also have the Golden Core / Zyx releases of Crystal Logic, Metal and Invasion up for grabs at manillaroad.net also. Might even be some other merchandise that you have not seen as well so you might want to check out the merchandise tab.

Just got back a few weeks ago from the Up The Hammers Festival in Athens Greece where we were graced with the presence of Mr. Randy Thrasher Foxe joining the crew for a bit on stage thrashing the drums like the old days. We had a great time and the people that were in attendance were fantastic. I am always so honored when going to Greece and it is just an amazing experience every time. A huge thank you to all involved and to all the fans especially for supporting the event and making it a truly incredible time for all of us. As usual I miss Greece already and I have not been home that long. There are a lot of places I have been that do that to me ha ha.

Still working on the next Hellwell album but there has been a lot of progress on it since we finally finished working on The Blessed Curse. All the songs are written and we have most of the parts recorded also except for the drums. Jonny Thumper Benson should be flying in to do drums in about a month or so. So it looks like we will have the 2nd Hellwell album done in time to release it yet this year.

I also have an acoustic solo project called Obsidian Dreams that I have signed to Zyx and I will be mastering the project in the next week or so. Expect this out this year also and for that matter much sooner than that of the Hellwell release.

And then I guess the really interesting news for the moment is that we have (after years of searching) finally found the lost demo tape that was titled Underground from 1979. This was the very first studio recording of Manilla Road and included 3 songs. A total of 27 minutes that track list is Far Side of the Sun, Manilla Road and Herman Hill. The lineup of musicians on this demo is Scott Park on Bass Guitar, Myles Sype on Drums and myself on Guitar and Vocals. Now I reserve judgment on how this thing sounds because I have not listened to it yet and would not have even mentioned it’s finding until I had listened to it but Hellroadie already posted a video of the findings on facething. So I will be transferring the tape to digital format under the best of conditions and of course analyzing the quality of the tape itself before we even play it. We have a very fine studio here in Wichita that has an expert engineer that has worked at restoring most of our old catalog many years ago and we still do much work with this guy so the best of care will be taken with this ancient reel of tape. But I must say that from the fist look of things it was stored very well and is in pristine shape. So I am expecting to be able to use the tape and get a good transfer from it without having to bake the tape. You really don’t want to go through the baking process unless you absolutely have too because once you have the tape baked you can only play it once or twice before the fidelity of the tape goes to shit. So if the emulsion is not flaking off the tape then we will transfer it without going through the baking process and then put the damn thing in a vault where it will never see the light of day again ha ha. It is really amazing that we have found this thing. I had actually only hoped to find even a cassette of the demo but this is the best possible thing that could have happened. I hope the tape is still in good shape and that we get a good digital run on it so that we can make it available to the public in the near future.

Well that is all for now. I mighty thanks to all who support the Road. We cannot continue on without your faith. Up The Hammers & Down The Nails

Mark The Shark Shelton
Manilla Road / Hellwell