Release Date September 25th, 2026
Format CD/LP
Genre Black/Thrash Metal
Origin Finland
Flame formed in Kuopio in 1998, started by former members of Barathrum and Urn. A couple of demos and a 2001 split with Devil Lee Rot opened the road, another demo arrived in 2004 and a split with the late Australian band Ghastly followed in 2005. The debut “Into The Age Of Fire” welded blackthrash to bestial metal, and “March Into Firelands” came six years after it. Then another long silence, broken by the 2020 mini album “Ignis Spiritus” through Primitive Reaction. Founding vocalist and guitarist Blackvenom still leads the band. This third album was recorded by Chris Nunravager, formerly of Adorior, at his Rat Nest Recording studio, and mixed by Greg Chandler of Esoteric at Priory Recording Studios in the UK.
“Ignis Draconis Daemonicus” offers nine tracks in just under fifty minutes, and Flame plays them with a heavy, ceremonial stride. Chandler’s mix is the first thing that grabs you: the guitars have a wide, grinding body, the drums land with a hard thud and the vocals sit up front, and the underground rawness survives despite the size of the sound. “Kaosphere”, “Rising Crimson Desert Storm” and “Pure Damnation’s Ecstacy”, throw the thrash and bestial attack in a few minutes and leave.
“Black Flames Divination” and the title track are stretching the atmosphere across several minutes, and these are where the riffs start to wear thin and the pace slips away from the violence the shorter tracks deliver. Blackvenom’s lyrics are occult poetry, drawn from Thelema, Typhonian and Draconian currents, Chaos Magick and Luciferian philosophy, a turn away from the plain blasphemy of the first two albums, and titles like “Deification (The Serpent’s Promise)” and “Mystical Voice Of My Demon Master” agree with that path.
Blending black metal, thrash and bestial metal with an atmospheric layer gives Flame a sound of their own after nearly three decades. The album alternates quick strikes with long incantations, a pattern that gives the order of tracks some shape, though every jump into a longer track cools the heat built before it. A strong third album with a big, ugly mix, held back only by a couple of tracks that run longer than their ideas.
|7.8
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