CIRITH UNGOL — Frost and Fire (review)

CIRITH UNGOL — Frost and Fire album cover Album · 1981 · Heavy Metal Buy this album from MMA partners
3.5/5 ·
Warthur
The band themselves have often explained why this album sounds so different from the doomier and more complex material on their subsequent discs; hoping to attain some level of commercial success and widespread popularity, they deliberately picked out the songs from their repertoire that they believed had the most commercial appeal for this first release. When it didn't get any radio airplay, they swore off this approach for the subsequent albums, and the rest is history.

As a result, this release is rather compromised from the beginning, and certainly doesn't give a sense of the classic Cirith Ungol sound, though the closing track Maybe That's Why does hint at it. What we get this time around is a brief slice of doomy hard rock, with garage rock production values, sludgy bass from Greg Lindstrom, classic rock-styled soloing from lead guitarist Jerry Fogle, and songs mainly focusing on the time-honoured subjects of making love and rocking out.

What makes the record distinctive - and the closest link to the more characteristic sound of the subsequent discs - is lead singer Tim Baker's firey performance. His tortured wails, reminiscent of Geddy Lee with his hand in a vice or Rob Halford after a sharp kick in the nuts, add a wild-eyed and manic edge to the material which a more sober and serious delivery wouldn't have, catchy tracks such as Edge of a Knife proving to be a particularly good showcase for his vocal gymnastics.

On balance, I'd say this is one for hardened Cirith Ungol fans only - it's hard to see the crucial role they'd play in the evolution of doom metal on this album which is so compromised by their mercenary approach to choosing songs. Still, as hard rock-influenced metal showing the influence of Judas Priest and early Sabbath goes, it's not that bad at all.
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Time Signature wrote:
more than 2 years ago
Whoa.... that cover artwork was also used for one of the role playing games that I spent a lot of time on in my teens. Awesome! Thanks for making me aware of this release.

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