Monday, August 6: Hellwell, “Eaters of the Dead”
R.I.P. Mark “The Shark” Shelton (1957-2018)
Mark Shelton’s motivations for recording Beyond the Boundaries of Sin under the Hellwell moniker as opposed to putting it out as a Manilla Road album were hard to discern, but then again, the same could be said about virtually anything Shelton did. There was the fact that Hellwell was seemingly named after bassist E.C. Hellwell, but he was also in Manilla Road with Shelton at the time, so who knows? In any event, “Eaters of the Dead” felt like a natural extension of Manilla Road thanks to Shelton’s distinctive vocal flair: the song was maybe a bit thrashier than usual, and perhaps a little more dynamic, but Shelton could only sound like himself, and his eccentric charisma shone through every note. The track was long and progressive, with a good amount of indie crunch in the riffing and drumming, and the trio that constituted Hellwell sounded both unpolished and tight. In other words, “Eaters of the Dead” banged like the lost Manilla Road gem it basically was.