Manilla Road

I won’t pretend that Mark Shelton was my idol, but he embodied everything I loved about metal, and what I no longer found at a certain point in metal. The ability to have a vision and to fully immerse oneself in it, he was the quintessential bard. This made metal alive, human, even brilliant, beyond its flaws and, indeed, precisely because of them. It’s something I no longer recognize in current metal, frankly mannered, lost among triggers, guitar technicalities, and overly polished singers. Goodbye, Mark, and thank you for everything you’ve given me.