The Triumph Of Steel

Originally released 29 September 1992.
This album was inspired by Homer's "Iliad" and it was dedicated to Greece,
As Joey DeMaio said: "We wrote an album for Greece, that's how much we love Greece"
It is the only album to feature guitarist David Shankle and drummer Kenny Earl "Rhino" Edwards.
"Achilles, Agony and Ecstasy in Eight Parts" is the longest (28 minutes and 38 seconds) and most complex Manowar song, and probably an anticipation of a concept album that was never accomplished. Because of its Homeric content, it attracted the attention of a group of scholars at Bologna University in Italy. Mrs. Eleonora Cavallini, Professor in Classics, has written about this song:
"Joey DeMaio’s lyrics imply a careful and scrupulous reading of the Iliad. The songwriter has focused his attention essentially on the crucial fight between Hector and Achilles, has paraphrased some passages of the poem adapting them to the melodic structure with a certain fluency and partly reinterpreting them, but never altering or upsetting Homer’s storyline. The purpose of the lyrics (and of the music as well) is to evoke some characteristic Homeric sceneries: the raging storm of the battle, the barbaric, ferocious exultance of the winner, the grief and anguish of the warrior who feels death impending over him. The whole action hinges upon Hector and Achilles, who are represented as specular characters, divided by an irreducible hatred and yet destined to share a similar destiny. Both are caught in the moment of the greatest exaltation, as they savagely rejoice for the blood of their killed enemies, but also in the one of the extreme pain, when the daemon of war finally pounces on them. Furthermore, differently than in the irreverent and iconoclastic movie Troy, in "Achilles, Agony and Ecstasy in Eight Parts", the divine is a constant and ineluctable presence, determining human destinies with inscrutable and steely will, and, despite the generic reference to 'the gods', the real master of human lives is Zeus, the only God to whom both Hector and Achilles address their prayers"
The original cover is almost fully black like Metallica, only some fire smoke is giving the slightest impression of what will follow when the The Triumph Of Steel (Germany 1992) (opens in a new tab) reveals the epic artwork painted by Ken Kelly.
It was certified gold in Germany reaching chart 8.
Vinyl releases:
1992
first run gatefold (opens in a new tab)
first run non-gatefold (opens in a new tab)
non-gatefold (opens in a new tab) I white label (opens in a new tab)
2011
1000 red (opens in a new tab)
1000 grey (opens in a new tab)
2018 1500 red translucent (opens in a new tab)
2019
200 milky clear (opens in a new tab)
200 green transparent (opens in a new tab)
200 orange (opens in a new tab)
500 black (opens in a new tab)
piss yellow (opens in a new tab)
2020
1000 orange black merge (opens in a new tab)
red / black merge (opens in a new tab)