If you were to ask me what the absolute best, most consistent 'traditional' heavy metal band from the United States is, the answer would always be Manilla Road. The thing is that I haven't even known about the band for all that long, I mean they've been around since 1977 and I didn't hear 'Crystal Logic' until 2003 after deciding to download the highly recommended album on a whim. I'm an awkward sort of fellow who finds unique band names eternally poke at my brain until I listen to that band. Once I'd gotten over a few isolated giggles (Man + Vanilla = Manilla, man vanilla... ugh, sorry I hate myself) that literally nobody else on Soulseek though was funny, I listened to 'Crystal Logic' and what a perfect introduction to an amazing band. There are few metal bands that literally embody the "epic" descriptor, and I don't think puritanical sub-genre snobs would argue that the whole "epic heavy metal" tag wouldn't exist without Manilla Road's stylistic influence. The classic six album run from 1983-1990 (Crystal Logic, Open the Gates, The Deluge, Mystification, Out of the Abyss, and The Courts of Chaos) serve as two monumental "trilogies". The first three records took the bones of the NWOBHM movement and fused it with 70's progressive rock influences, the next three records built upon that now signature sound as they smartly incorporated speed metal and thrash metal. There was no other band out there that created such a perfect fusion of these elements and each album was truly progressive from one to another. It is only fitting that in their 40th year of existence Manilla Road would put out 'To Kill a King' a record that distills the essence of that original run of six albums where Manilla Road cemented themselves as the underground's true kings of North American heavy metal.