Our debt to Mr Slagel and his brainchild Metal Blade cannot be overrated. They were the definition of Classic US Metal in the first half of the 80's and their output was damn near flawless during their early years. This interview tells the back story better than I could ever do.

Now, record labels don't always allow themselves to be indexed that easily, and Metal Blade is a particularly tricky number. It's not that there's any mysterious holes in their discog that need researching, but rather the order in which to list their releases. While serial numbers are usually the best way to keep track of a label's output, it gets really complicated in MB's case. Here's the deal:

• In the beginning MB used their own serials for the records (MBR 1001, MBR 1002, MBR 1003 etc).
  
• From their 6th release they got picked up by Enigma Records, who marketed/distributed their releases and also added their own catalogue number to each album. (first = E1006, E-1017, E-1018, E-1035 etc, later = 72072, 72159, 73224 etc).
• After 80-or-so releases they scrapped their own MBR 10##-system. At the same time Enigma sub-label Restless start to take over the marketing of randomly distributed releases, using a similar but different cat# system. This makes these numbers pretty useless for indexing-purpouses, especially since they don't coincide with the order in which the albums were released either.

The way I finally decided to list their stuff is by using the MBR 10##-system for the the first 100+ releases - the last bunch with the help of a separate catalogue sheet. After that I've followed the release dates as specified in this old page at metalblade.com. Note that these dates sometimes differ from the ones stated on the new Releases-page, and that both versions have know errors. Sigh.

This page has now been updated with a new column called "Versions". Here I've listed all the known pressing variations of each release, though I must stress that there's probably still a few versions missing. Do get in contact if you've seen any versions not incuded on this page! The payoff for this in-depth nerdery is that we can 1. distinguish which version was the absolute, one-and-only, proper First Pressing of these classics, 2. see how many versions exist and 3. get an idea of in which order they were released and when.

Since there's only one release made with an alternative vinyl color (the white Trouble debut LP) and only a handful of other releases that came with different sleeve design verions, I've concentrated on the 2 other common markers for general pressing variations: barcode/no barcode and labels. Here's a list of the most common label designs with added info:

	Yellow label The earliest standard label design, used on most releases from 1982-1983.
	Silver label Used on all 1984 releases and 1984 releases only, bar the 3rd Stage Alert mini. This means most pressings of '82/83 releases carrying this label should have been released in 1984.
	White label with chain (old logo) Used from the beginning of 1985 up until mid-'86. Colorwise these tend to vary from white to "tan" to light yellow, but these may be manufacturing variations or possibly the result of aging. They're all refered to as 'White' here.
	White label with chain (new logo) Used in the 2nd half of 1986, starting with Juggernaut's "Baptism Under Fire" + a few 1987 releases. As with the old version, these can vary some in background color but that doesn't necessarily indicate different pressings.
	Black/red Enigma label Used on all 1987 releases marketed by Enigma.
	Razors label Used on most releases from 1988 to the very last original MB vinyl release in early 1990 (Candlemass' "Tales Of Creation"). This means all pressings of pre-'88 releases with this logo should have been made in 1988 or later.

There's some other versions as well, but they mostly apply to co-op releases with other labels - see descriptions in the main list. Note that some of these designes were borrowed by labels like Roadrunner, Enigma Canada and the UK "Metal Blade Z" branch, but these versions are of course not included here since they were license pressings and not proper Metal Blade originals.

There were of course some great stuff released by MBR in the early 90's as well, but in order to set a consistent end to this list I've decided to index the label's original run of vinyl releases in its entirety, in the process covering their complete 80's output and thus covering a few early CD releases as well. I've left out the Death Records stuff since it's mostly (if not all) HC/crossover.

I've also added a list of all the special promo-releases at the bottom. The EPRO-### catalogue system was shared with mother label Enigma and most of their sublabels, so that would explain most of the missing cat#'s.

One last thing to perhaps add in the future are the releases on the aforementined UK branch of MBR, a.k.a "Metal Blade Z". This was basically Zomba/Music For Nations borrowing the entire brand instead of just licensing them on their own labels. Stay tuned...