20. Manilla Road Invasion 1980 (Roadster Records)
Heavy Metal
The rats are in the cellar and the dog’s got the mange!
Album
Once upon a time a in a dark dingy basement in Witchita (well it sounds like it could’ve been) a three-piece band led by guitarist and vocalist Mark ‘the shark’ Shelton were recording a home-made debut that sounded so raw, that it could’ve been the grassroots of the grassroots of a new metal dawn in the USA. As by the late 1970s American metal acts like Manilla Road, knew that US record labels either couldn’t or didn’t know how to market raw metal bands like themselves and were therefore inclined to just get on and record the material that they wanted and hope for some recognition. Unlike in the UK there was no musical revolution in 1980 for American metal, so new raw metal bands like Manilla Road had to forge out there own existence and pathway, but gradually with the rise of the first hardcore punk bands, grassroot outfits such as Manilla Road would finally gain the recognition that they had always deserved. Manilla Road though were not your typical speed metal or proto-thrash band that benefitted from a local scene, but instead they were more of a somewhat isolated metal act, that seemed to exist in their basement and they were a band that drew as much from progressive rock and space rock as they did from standard heavy metal. Now when it comes to basement raw, the Manilla Road debut entitled
Invasion has always been one of my favourite examples of this type of recording. The opening track the 6 mins plus “The Dream Goes On” is a jittery rocker that draws a strong influence from the classic “Nantucket Sleighride” by Mountain, then comes “Cat and Mouse” a potent ambient rocker with impressive guitar work and one of the best on the album, but the album’s showpiece is surely the closing track the 13 minute space rock inspired “The Empire” which demonstrates the band’s love of Rush era
2112 and the song is pretty epic as well. The album though gets a lot of bad rap, largely due to its turgid sounding efforts like “Far Side of the Sun” and “Street Jammer” which sound like that they never actually got out of the basement! I’ve often seen reviews that state this album as being an absolute turd, whilst others that state the album is nothing short of a masterpiece, the truth as always is somewhere in the middle and certainly nearerer the second option. Manilla Road like Virginia’s Pentagram are one of those cult American metal bands, that fall right in with the early 1970s metal bands such as the Sabbath inspired Bang and the pounding Sir Lord Baltimore, they’re a real connoisseur’s delight!