Welcome to the online home of ArcticFlame

Fire, the passion and belief in one's music and one's self. Ice, the ability to ignore all who criticize or think they know what's best and continue doing what you believe in. These are just two of the qualities found in heavy metal's newest member, ArcticFlame. In a world where everyone follows the flavor of the month, AF sticks to their guns and creates music they grew up on and continue to enjoy.

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9/15/2011
Another Guardian at the Gate" review..There's good reason to listen to a new recording more than once before review. Such is the case for New Jersey's Arctic Flame and their third long player, Guardian at the Gate. This album passed as merely mundane and difficult on the first listen.As much affection as I have for classic heavy metal, not everything that crosses my desk raises to lofty heights. But this cadre of old school metallers give a gallant effort. A second listen proved more valuable. From the start early Eighties metal is resurrected within both My Little Slice of Hell and Guardian at the Gate. Notes of heaviness, even a doomish, quality are evident, thanks to the sometimes plodding pace. Both try to sound epic, but with the latter seems redundantly too long. This my also characterize the closing piece, The Eternal. It trudges along for more than three minutes at a disturbingly difficult pace, almost enough to hit the skip or fast forward button. However, it gets a tad brisk at that mark, which leads to a crushing guitar solo around six to seven minutes in. Ultimately, it feels that song arrangements are doing battle with lyrical storytelling for control of these pieces. In between beginning and end, not everything is measured this way. Raise Your Glasses and Bloodmotor invoke the cleverness and clarity that allowed peers Judas Priest to make metal accessible. The instrumental Falkenfels merely shows Arctic Flame's classic metal credentials. Better is The Creeper, which offers a Priest meets Maiden well-paced melodic metal arrangement. Next to the title track it's probably the best song here. There's plenty to mine from Arctic Flame's Guardian at the Gate especially if you rouse your spirit of patience and expectation. However, this album will likely be better received by those for whom classic old school heavy metal is their first great love.

9/13/2011
Review from RockBox-"Guardian at the Gate is album number three from New Jersey-based heavy metal outfit Arctic Flame, another of the traditional metal revivalists on the Pure Steel label. Like most bands in the so-called New Wave of Traditional metal, Arctic Flame cites Judas Priest and Iron Maiden as key influences, but their sound is a bit more complex and hard to pin down than the average White Wizzard-style band. As soon as opening monster "My Little Slice of Hell" kicks in you wonder whether someone slipped in a Candlemass or Solitude Aeternus disc by mistake. That song and the lumbering title track have that old school doom metal sound down perfectly. The album takes a sharp turn into safer, more expected territory with the Judas Priest-style "Raise Your Glasses" and the thrashy "Bloodmotor". A melodic metal anthem awaits after the instrumental "Falkenfels" with "The Creeper", which may be the album's best song. The album takes on a power metal sound with "A Wailing at Glen Corr" and the 10-minute epic "The Eternal", both of which bring to mind Obsession and even Iced Earth. Throughout the album Sebastian Garcia serves up impressive riffs and melodies to accompany Michael Clayton Moore's powerful and just aggressive enough vocal style. While it's good to know that Arctic Flame isn't limited to the confines of a single genre, the constant shifts in style prevent Guardian at the Gate from developing a cohesive sound and identity. There are great songs to be sure, but the album as a whole never seems to come together. Guardian at the Gate is a very solid, totally enjoyable slab of old school heavy metal. It's a bit too unfocused to make the jump from good to truly great, but there are definitely some memorable songs here. Unfortunately for the band, 2011 has given us so many amazing traditional metal albums that this album may end up getting overlooked entirely."

9/9/2011
The band will be performing at the MetalGods festival in Mansfield, Nottingham, England on May 26th, 2012. So check underneath the couch cushions, the car seats and in your mothers pocketbook for any loose change and save up for airfare.