Rating: 7.7

Country: Finland

Release Date: 2005

Record Label: Iron Pegasus

Track list:
1. Hell’s Flame Is Burning (Intro)
2. Satan’s Flame (Age Of Fire Part 1)
3. Acts Of The Black Wisdom
4. Lust, Flesh, Desire
5. Darkness Shall Rise
6. Internal Wrath (Infernal Hate) [MP3]
7. Dark Demonic Domain [MP3]
8. Poisoned Kingdom (Age Of Fire Part 2)
9. Roots Of Evil- Eternal Abyss (Outro)

Band Website: Flame

Flame - Into The Age of Fire

Blackvenom - Guitars, Vocals
Infernus - Bass
Pimea - Drums

Anybody who knows me knows the reverence and praise I shower on Barathrum’s Nazgul’s Eyrie output, which remains to this day among the most perverse, unfailingly unique JET BLACK METAL to have been vomited forth from the extreme metal underground. Absorbing the trance-inducing soundscapes of Czechian/Greek masters and projecting those doctrines through a screen of scowling, foreboding DOOM, Barathrum played black metal the way it should sound- deliberately loathsome, fetid, EVIL, like Tormentor being covered by Black Hole. Many Barathrum fanatics, then, are also acutely aware of the band’s decline since their departure from NEP, having left for wider acclaim with Finland’s Spinefarm and ditched the nebulous torment of earlier output for something more frivolous and nonchalant. With Barathrum mastermind Demonos Sova seemingly unable to keep a steady lineup for more than a record, Barathrum’s original bloodthirsty formation has taken the liberty of re-opening wounds once bled by their former outfit, dividing into two similar-minded troupes, Urn and Flame.

Having generated a reasonable amount of hype with last year’s split with Australia’s Ghastly, Flame have finally crafted their first full length strike, a warhead aimed at all that is chaste and holy! The modus operandi here is dirt-encrusted, outrageously catchy blackened thrash. While such a direction might seem almost entirely removed from Barathrum (‘’almost’’ being used here because Barathrum did have a prominent thrashiness to many of their compositions), Flame are wholly unlike many bands peddling the same style. Teutonic thrash is certainly the catalyst here, the band bearing the post-Destruction birthmarks shared by outfits like Gospel Of The Horns and Destroyer 666, but at the same time Flame also exhibit the agonized, vacuum-of-sound aesthetic favored by Barathrum’s early exploits. While the album features but a lone bass guitar, the guitar is tuned so low that the feel evoked is remarkably similar, the guitar and bass working in tandem to form a putrescent black mass over the busy, driving, fill-intensive percussion. I really love how the bass is used here, providing the rhythmic foundation of the record and cementing an insistent, enveloping nastiness to the proceedings…fuck a second guitarist! Everything is soaked in plenty of distortion- vocals are distant, tortured and cavernous in the Barathrum tradition, the bass and guitars sound filthy as FUCK, the band interpreting unabashedly Bavarian ideas through the sonic palette of 'Eerie' and 'Hailstorm'.

To their advantage, the debut Flame record is succinct and to-the-point, hacking and slashing for a mere 28 minutes. This is hardly a bad thing, for the 28 minutes are relentless and exhausting, absolutely refusing to embark on the angular, longer-winded excursions of some of their brethren. No interludes, solos or acoustic passages here, nor are there any hints of the elaborate doom leanings that tinted Barathrum endeavors…this is pedal-to-the-metal, audaciously aggressive material that holds no punches and takes no prisoners. While some may lament the production values here (after all, such unapologetic depravity can only appeal to the most dedicated hellbangers), I fucking LOVE the inebriated dirtiness that permeates everything that Flame does. If you’ve ever wondered what Barathrum would sound like if they forsook their repetitious, occultic leanings and pursued a career in voracious, carnivorous THRASH metal, this is exactly what they would sound like. Along with the similarly disgusting Urn, Flame have more than made up for the shortcomings of a once-mighty cult (though the new Barathrum is not bad, either!).

July 3rd, 2005