GMD Poll: Manilla Road's Discography Ranked

crimsonfloyd

crimsonfloyd

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Apr 18, 2002
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Directions: Rank Manilla Road's studio albums. Order and number each album 1-18. Ties are OK. Your first place album earns 18 points, your second place album earns 17 points, etc.

Rules:
  • You may rank as few as 9 albums. Lists with less than 9 albums will not be counted.
  • If you list less than 18 albums, the first placed album will still get 18 points, the last placed album will still get 1 point, and the albums in between will have points distributed proportionately. The average points earned for albums that are not listed will not be impacted positively or negatively, so if you don't rank an album, you neither help it or hurt it.
  • If you have fewer than 100 posts on the forum, you may vote, but your vote will not be counted (The TechnicalBarbarity Rule)
At the end, the albums will be ranked based on their average number of points per vote.

You have until Friday May 4th to finalize your list, re-familiarize yourself albums you haven’t heard in awhile, familiarize yourself with albums you haven’t heard at all, lobby for any albums you think are underrated, and lobby against any albums you think are overrated.

And please, no pseudo-Machiavelli shit. Just rank them as you see them.

Albums:
Invasion (1980)
Metal (1981)
Crystal Logic (1983)
Open the Gates (1985)
The Deluge (1986)
Mystification (1987)
Out of the Abyss (1988)
The Courts of Chaos (1990)
The Circus Maximus (1992)
Atlantis Rising (2001)
Spiral Castle (2002)
Mark of the Beast (2002)
Gates of Fire (2005)
Voyager (2008)
Playground for the Damned (2011)
Mysterium (2013)
The Blessed Curse (2015)
To Kill a King (2017)
 
I have questions about whether a few of the albums should count.

The Circus Maximus is technically a Mark Shelton solo album under the Manilla Road name. Do we want to count it?Mark of the Beast is an archival release. It was their original 2nd album that got tabled in favor of Metal. Do we want to count it?
 
I was listening to bits and pieces of their later stuff recently and was in awe of how terrible it was. I think I'll actually go through most of the discography just to conclusively determine how garbage this band is.
 
I was going to do a legit ranking for this band, but I tried listening to the very first album again the other day which I remember not hating and got maybe a minute into the first song before shutting it off.

MR is trash.jpg
 
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Need to relisten to a bunch of their albums, but my preliminary ranking is something like this:

1. Crystal Logic
2. Gates of Fire
3. Spiral Castle
4. Atlantis Rising
5. Open the Gates
6. Metal
7. Out of the Abyss
8. The Courts of Chaos
9. Mystification
10. To Kill a King
11. Invasion
12. Mark of the Beast
13. The Deluge
14. HamburgerBoy
 
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Preliminary to be expanded

1. Spiral Castle - pretty atmospheric and interesting all the way through, almost psych rock at times, 7/10
2. The Courts of Chaos - the most progressive Manilla Road I'm familiar with, aside from Vlad the Impaler which is shit, the songs generally show thoughtful arrangements, 6/10
3. The Circus Maximus - actually a pretty good album if obviously disjointed, nice mix of AOR/neo-prog, trad, and funk/alt metal, 6/10
4. The Deluge - transition albums are good for this band because it means they're forced to have more than one or two song ideas per album, still some leftover-sounding material but overall an acceptable album, 5/10
5. Open the Gates - strong highlights but half the album is really basic and repetitive, 4/10
6. Atlantis Rising - the best parts are up there with Spiral Castle but it has two garbage songs, a few more average ones, and the vocals sometimes resemble the Children of Bodom guy, 4/10
7. Mark of the Beast - pretty bland psych rock for the most part but not too offensive, 4/10
8. Mystification - the more melodic/less heavy songs are decent, but so much rehash and filler, 3/10
9. Crystal Logic - anyone that hates on British Steel for simplistic songwriting while praising this needs to die, 2/10
10. Out of the Abyss - Return of the Old Ones is good, most of the rest, especially the thrash material, is embarrassing, 2/10
11. Gates of Fire - not a single interesting moment and full of stupid chugging riffs, 2/10
 
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The Circus Maximus and Mark of the Beast (although I'd go with what the band wants to call it now, Dreams of Eschaton) should definitely count.

I own everything but the latest two but I have a hard time listening to anything out of my top 6 or so any more.

I'll rank off the top of my head and I'll revisit other albums and try and finish the list.

1. Crystal Logic
2. Invasion
3. Dreams of Eschaton/Mark of the Beast
4. Mystification
5. The Deluge
6. Out of the Abyss
7. Open the Gates
8. Metal
9. Spiral Castle
10. Atlantis Rising
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
 
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1. The Deluge
2. Mystification
3. Crystal Logic
4. Open the Gates
5. Metal
6. Out of the Abyss
7. Voyager
8. Invasion
9. The Circus Maximus
10. Gates of Fire
11. Spiral Castle
12. Mark of the Beast
13. Mysterium
14. Playground of the Damned

Haven't heard the others.
 
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1. Voyager
2. Gates of Fire
3. The Courts of Chaos
4. Crystal Logic
4. Spiral Castle
5. Gates of Fire
6. Mark of the Beast
7. The Deluge
8. Mystification
9. Atlantis Rising
10. Playground of the Damned
11. Invasion
12. Out of the Abyss
13. Metal
14. Mysterium
15. Circus Maximus
 
1. Crystal Logic
2. The Courts of Chaos
3. Mystification
4. Out of the Abyss
5. Open the Gates
6. The Deluge
7. Gates of Fire
8. Atlantis Rising
9. Spiral Castle
10. Invasion
11. Mark of the Beast
12. Voyager
13. Metal
14. Playground of the Damned
15. Mysterium
 
1) Crystal Logic (1983)
2) Mystification (1987)
3) Gates of Fire (2005)
4) Open the Gates (1985)
5) The Deluge (1986)
6) Voyager (2008)
7) Spiral Castle (2002)
8) Atlantis Rising (2001)
9) Mark of the Beast (2002)
10) Metal (1981)
11) The Blessed Curse (2015)
12) Invasion (1980)
13) The Courts of Chaos (1990)
14) Playground for the Damned (2011)
15) Mysterium (2013)
16) To Kill a King (2017)
17) Out of the Abyss (1988)
18) The Circus Maximus (1992)

Still a work in progress. Listening to their discography as we speak. Man, Out of the Abyss is BORING.
 
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I listened to Atlantis Rising last night for the first time in a while and it kicked my ass pretty hard. May move it up in my rankings.
 
Yeah, I also quite like it, but it still will be somewhere in the middle/low end of my list. I'm relistening to Metal now and I think I might have to lower that down a bit on my list. It's great but it doesn't have the same punch as I remember it having. Queen of the Black Coast and Cage of Mirrors are amazing tracks and are good enough on their own to make Metal awesome, but I'm just not sure if I think it's better than, say, Gates of Fire or Spiral Castle.
 
Order of best -> worst

Crystal Logic
Metal
Mystification
Open the Gates
The Deluge
Mark of the Beast
Spiral Castle
Atlantis Rising
Gates of Fire
Voyager
Invasion
Out of the Abyss
Courts of Chaos
Playground of the Damned
Mysterium
The Blessed Curse
The Circus Maximus
To Kill A King -> Listened to this for the first time yesterday, rough album
 
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