Fighting the World

Manowar had been through two major labels in the space of four years when they signed with Atlantic Records, and this was the first album of the new contract, issued on Atlantic's ATCO Records label on 17 February 1987. Eric Adams sang, Ross the Boss played guitars and keyboards, Joey DeMaio four- and eight-string bass and Scott Columbus drums and percussion, and the band produced the record itself. It was recorded and mixed on 32-track digital equipment at Universal Recording in Chicago, with Rich Breen engineering and Vince Gutman supervising the recording; Jason Flom was executive producer, and Howie Weinberg mastered it at Masterdisk in New York. Ross the Boss later described it as the band's first digital recording. The songwriting is credited to DeMaio and Manowar. "Defender" is a new recording of a song first released in 1983 as a single with "Gloves of Metal", and Orson Welles's narration is heard in it once more. "Blow Your Speakers", coupled with "Violence and Bloodshed", became a single in 1987. The LP and the CD carry the same nine tracks in the same order. In the history the band posted on its website in 2000, Manowar toured Europe again with this album and invited fans onto the stage to sing or to play guitar. In Germany the industry association BVMI certified the album gold in 1994. Looking back in 2022, Ross the Boss called the Atlantic years a time of great success and said that this album and its successor, Kings of Metal, had gone gold in Europe. In 2026 the band announced the Kings of Metal Fighting the World Tour of 2027, with complete performances of this album at its concerts in several countries.