Frost and Fire, Part 2 – Heavy Metal Edition

This past SpaceAce Sunday, we looked at the first of two albums we have on The List [1001otheralbums.com] that have the same, rather holiday-relevant title of Frost and Fire. While The Watersons’ album actually has a few Xmas/Xmas-adjacent songs, the same cannot be said of the album we are looking at today. But, it’s December 24, and so anything you listen to can be an Xmas album if you want it to be. Or, as they^[1] say, “yippie kayak, other buckets!”

Cirith Ungol – Frost and Fire (1981, US)

And so, today we take a listen to number 892 on The List, submitted by Almoehi.

I know that many metalheads are absolutely fanatic about this band, but listening to this album the other day was actually the first I had ever heard of theirs! With the band named after the mountain pass in Tolkien’s Middle-earth that goes through the Ephel Dúath (you know, the one near Minas Morgul in Mordor…), one might expect a lot of LoTR-themed lyrics on this, the band’s debut album. But, perhaps hinted at by the fact that the band name is to be pronounced “sirith ungol” rather than the more accurate “kirith ungol”, the name seems more of a statement of the lyrics being in the fantasy realm, with a loose association to the LoTR books rather than them being an overarching theme. At any rate, I don’t recognize any of the lyrics on this album as being LoTR-themed, so I believe it isn’t until their next album, King of the Dead [cirithungol.bandcamp.com] (1984), that we get to totally nerd out in that respect.

But! Let’s nerd out about the cover! This is the third album we’ve looked at so far on The List with a cover painted by the incredible Michael Whelan (on Mastodon: @MichaelWhelan [mastodon.art]).^[2] The Frost and Fire cover is a crop of Whelan’s 1977 painting titled “Stormbringer” [www.michaelwhelan.com], and was used on the cover of Michael Moorcock’s book of the same name, from his Elric of Melniboné saga. Whelan in fact would go on to provide the art for every single Cirith Ungol album, with all of the paintings also pulling double duty on a Moorcock/Elric of Melniboné book!

Even just based on those credits alone, it’s perhaps no surprise that music journalist and musician Sarah Kitteringham – of the epic doom metal band Smoulder [smoulder.bandcamp.com]^[3] and of BangerTV [bangertv.com] – is a giant Cirith Ungol fan. Sarah can dance circles around anyone in talking about this band (and, well, probably any doom/heavy metal metal band), and in fact wrote the liner notes for the 40th anniversary reissue [cirithungol.bandcamp.com] of Frost and Fire! So, rather than me regaling you with any Wikipedia-level facts, I would suggest we head on over to Discogs and read through those liner notes [www.discogs.com] together (click to images 2 and 3). If you’re a fan, perhaps also check out these demos and extras [cirithungolofficial.bandcamp.com] that were part of that anniversary reissue.

And so concludes our mini spotlight theme. Stay frosty and/or firey, all.

• Bandcamp: Cirith Ungol – Frost and Fire [cirithungol.bandcamp.com]
• Discogs: Cirith Ungol – [www.discogs.com]Frost and Fire [www.discogs.com]

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^[1]Well, Charles Boyle [www.youtube.com] at least says this.
^[2]The others being Meat Loaf’s Bat Out of Hell II [1001otheralbums.com] and Sepultura’s Beneath the Remains [1001otheralbums.com].
^[3]Fun fact: All of Smoulder’s album covers are also done by Whelan, and both of their LPs either reference or feature Moorcock.