Once Upon a Tale (Vinyl)

Roxx Records is once again excited to work on bringing another long lost classic Christian metal album to the spotlight, and this is one we have wanted to do for years. Without further ado, we are stoked to be bringing you classic Christian thrash band MARTYR back to the mainstream with a killer new compilation entitled Once Upon a Tale. What we have here is a culmination of all of the band's history through the years, including two previously unreleased tracks. Martyr stormed on to the thrash/punk crossover scene in the mid-80s, hailing from Van Nuys, California, with their debut 4-song demo entitled Fall on Your Face, recorded in April 1986, and the 9-track demo tape Death Is Dead released in 1987. Martyr would start playing shows and gaining notable notoriety playing with many similar bands including a very high profile show in Porterville, California playing with The Crucified. With the underground success of Death Is Dead, the band would continue on and release their next cassette only 4-track demo tape entitled Imminent Warfare in 1988 and followed that right up the next year in 1989 with the 4-track demo Frantic. But alas, with the competitive metal market and life getting in the way, the band would not continue on much further than those 3 independently released demos. There would be a few attempts to revive the band throughout the years, and ultimately in 1993 released the compilation album Wickenstraut album on CD only, which boasted a total of 18-tracks compiled from those three demos along with a few new tracks added to the mix. After that, we wouldn't hear much from the band again until 2001 when they would put out an extremely limited-edition CD in partnership with Betrayal entitled The Passing of Time, which featured 10-tracks starting with 7-tracks from Martyr, which were a combination of songs from Frantic and Imminent Warfare, along with three previously unreleased tracks and three songs from Betrayal. A very important side note is that Betrayal was born out of the remnants of Martyr. That all leads us to today and my personal excitement for this one, having seen them live only once, I (Bill Bafford - NLTM Records) personally fell in love with the music of Martyr and was constantly pestering the band to work with us. Low and behold Ladislao, with a little help from Chris Ackerman, finally agreed to work with us on this one. Coming Spring 2025 via Roxx Records for the first time ever on vinyl and remastered on CD, we proudly present you with Once Upon a Tale. Once Upon a Tale boasts a total of 10-tracks, featuring tracks from every release the band made and ending with two previously unreleased tracks.

Track List

1. Imminent Warfare
2. Frantic
3. War Circus
4. Impiously Deranged
5. Fallen Deceived
6. Plead the Blood
7. Escaping the Altar
8. When Darkness Reigns
9. American Holocaust
10. Truth