Hail to all ye Brethren of the Hammer,

I promised you all that there would be big announcements to come in my last Shark’s Mouth so the time has finally come to spill the beans as they say in parts of the US. I’m sure that the news has been spreading fast and so this might be old news to a few of you but I have been soooooooooo busy with all that has been happening that I have just now found the time to sit down at the computer and prepare this statement. So here it goes.

First of all we have inked a new recording deal in Europe. We just signed with Golden Core Records / ZYX in Germany. Golden Core is a subsidiary label to the mother company ZYX. Some of you may know of this label if you follow bands like Wishbone Ash, UDO or Running Wild among others who have had releases with this company. Golden Core is like the hard rock / metal label for ZYX which is a major label in the European market. The distribution power of these labels is immense throughout all of Europe. This may seem to be a bit of a weird choice for Manilla Road but there was a lot of thought put into this deal before we signed. First of all we have had a bit of a void in distribution in Europe. Sure our LPs have been available through High Roller Records and they have done a great job of putting out the catalog of MR on vinyl for the last few years as well as Shadow Kingdom Records has done a great job in the US of putting out our new and old releases on CD. But you could not actually find Manilla Road in the stores in Europe. So we went to work on finding a resolve to this distribution dilemma and now the solution has finally been reached. High Roller Records will still be doing all of our vinyl releases including our new albums and Shadow Kingdom Records will still be releasing everything on CD in the states. What is changing is that now Golden Core will be our record label in Europe and handling all the CD releases for all of that continent. This means that Manilla Road will have better promotion and distribution all through Europe and we will hopefully bring a bit of the underground to a whole mess of new music listeners.  One of the best things about this deal is that we have not given up any of the control of the music or artistic design of our releases. Nobody is telling us what kind of music to write and we still have control of the artwork and concepts of our projects. So it is a win, win situation for Manilla Road and hopefully this interaction with a major label will also bring benefit to the other small labels that we are still signed to for their respective markets.

Next on my list of announcements is that we have just finished the mixing of our new album Mysterium. We recorded the project in our own studio Midgard Sound Labs but we decided to mix it in another bigger and better studio with a new mixing engineer. The reason for this is because of my old school style of production that seems to be gathering a bit of ill reputation with some of our listeners. So in an effort to come out with the best sounding album possible we have mixed the album at Cornerstone Studios with Steve Falke at the helm. Steve is one of the foremost Pro Tools engineers in the states and his studio has so much capability for mixing that Midgard does not have that we were sure the outcome would be good. And it is. The mix still sounds like Manilla Road but with much more clarity than ever before and the overall mix itself is a bit of a different approach than what I take. The final outcome has been glorious and this is another giant leap forward for MR as I see it. It was very hard for me to let go of the reigns so to speak with the mix because I am very controlling when it comes to Manilla Road. I always want it my way and I always think that I should know best when it comes to the sound of our albums. So it was quite the feat alone for me to give up the mixing console to someone else. But the results have been very excellent so I am a happy camper at the end of the day here. Mysterium will be released in early February 2013 on Golden Core, High Roller and Shadow Kingdom.

Next on my list of announcements is our live shows that we have booked so far for the rest of 2012 and also the shows that we have confirmed for 2013 so far. This next week being the last week of September 2012 we will be playing at the Noctis Festival in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. October 14th 2012 we will be headlining the Up The Hammers Festival in Athens, Greece with a special 3 hour show that will include the entire Open The Gates album front to back. For 2013 we are confirmed to headline the Metal Assault Festival (February 2nd) in Wurzburg, Germany with a special 3 hour show which will be a 30th anniversary of Crystal Logic party as well as the release party for Mysterium. This show will feature the performance of the entire Crystal Logic album front to back with a special guest performance by Rick Fisher who was the original drummer for the Crystal Logic album. We are also booked for the Maryland DeathFest in Baltimore the next to the last week in May. Then onto the Chaos in Tejas Festival the week after in Austin, Texas. There will be many more performance dates to come in the near future that we will announce as well. As we finalize our live show dates we will keep updating the information on this site.

So there you have it for the time being.  Lots of exciting stuff happening and it looks like 2013 will be a really glorious time for the Road. Stay tuned to this channel for more information as it happens.

Up The Hammers,

Shark