YMMV / Manilla Road

• Awesome Music: Everything on Crystal Logic, Open the Gates, The Deluge and Mystification... for a start. The band isn't considered the Trope Maker of "epic metal" for nothing.
• Broken Base: Shelton's unusual Skeletor-esque vocal style, particularly prominent on the earliest records, is something of a Base Breaker among metalheads in general, even if the music itself is pretty unanimously beloved. For Manilla Road fans specifically, there are several:
  • Are the band's debut efforts, Invasion and Metal, a strong start that have since become hidden gems among their discography, or sloppy relics of experimentation best left in the dustbin of Canon Discontinuity as Mark Shelton himself opines?
  • Though most fans agree with Shelton that The Circus Maximus isn't fitting as an official Manilla Road album (given that it wasn't supposed to be one in the first place, and only ended up otherwise due to Executive Meddling), whether or not it's good in its own right is a much thornier and evenly-split question. The songwriting and vocal efforts of Andrew Coss and Aaron Brown are particularly contentious.
  • Hellroadie. He's either a great addition to the band who contributes a lot to their post-reunion material, or he's a substandard vocalist with a much less interesting voice than Shelton. (That said, his live vocal contributions are generally well-regarded, as Shelton admitted that, after chronic laryngitis left him unable to hit many higher notes, Hellroadie was a necessary part of the team for preforming the vocals of earlier songs.)
• Cult Classic: One of heavy metal's all-time great cult bands. They never broke into the mainstream or were even signed to a non-independent record label, but they were sustained throughout their long career by a small but extremely dedicated fanbase.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Randy Foxe is perhaps the most praised member aside from Shelton himself, thanks to his unique, intensely complex and busy drumming style that pushed the band in a much heavier and faster direction. The announcement that he would be the new drummer for Hellwell was met with much rejoicing among fans.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff: Throughout their career but in the 80s especially, Manilla Road were always more popular in Europe than America (they were signed to the French label Black Dragon Records from Open the Gates onwards), but were unable to fully tour there until the new millennium due to various logistical issues. They were particularly well-received in Italy and Greece, which in recent years have become home to a number of bands heavily influenced by Manilla Road, sometimes dubbed the “new wave of Mediterranean epic metal” (examples include Doomsword, Battleroar and Holy Martyr).
• Growing the Beard: Most of the fandom, and Shelton himself, think that the band went through this with Crystal Logic, where they shed most of their hard rock and psychedelic elements in favour of their classic “epic metal” style. Some would also say that the beard got even longer when the band got heavier and more technical on Open the Gates.
• Narm Charm: Mark Shelton's vocals in the early days before they began to get deeper and harsher starting with Open The Gates. Their shrewd nasally sound prompted many aforementioned Skeletor comparisons over the years, but Mark very much leaned into it and used that to basically make himself sound like a badass, metal wizard, so fans tend to love that vocal tendency of his regardless.
• Seasonal Rot: Some fans see the albums from after the band was signed to Shadow Kingdom Records (Playground of the Damned onward) this way, but this is quite a point of contention, particularly with regards to which albums comprise the supposed downward trend. Mysterium tends to get the brunt of this criticism, however, as it has the most streamlined sound out of the four, and is the only Manilla Road album to feature more lead vocals from Hellroadie than Shelton.
• Signature Song: “Necropolis” by far, with “Flaming Metal Systems” a close second. Both songs ended up in the 2012 movie Metal Maniac.