Normally I try to avoid unofficial releases of actual albums. I’m fine with picking up a live Led Zep record from a show in the in 1970s, but I wouldn’t buy some bootleg copy of Houses of the Holy. The former gives me access to something that the band themselves never put out. The latter is just a copy of an actual release, a true pirating situation.
There are, however, some exceptions to this rule, most notably when an impossibly rare (read: expensive) record never received any kind of affordable official reissue. One recent example just arrived in my mailbox, an unofficial 2023 pressing of the 1987 Icelandic metal album Fire and Steel by Flames of Hell. Allegedly pressed in either 50 or 100 copies (sources differ…), the two most recent sales on Discogs were each over $4,500. Now, I’ve spent a few hundred dollars on a record before. But… no. The first unofficial vinyl pressing came out in 2010, and the most recent editions can be grabbed for $30 or so, which is much more affordable.
Almost nothing is known about Flames of Hell. There is a decent small article in Icelandic available online HERE, which thanks to the magic of Google Translate (which has gotten MUCH better at translating Icelandic in recent years…) is easily readable. I hate to use such a long quote, but given how little is known about the band I figured I’d give it all to you:
The history of the band Flames of Hell is shrouded in mystery and few seem to know anything about its origins or history in Iceland. It may have been one of the first, or perhaps the very first, Icelandic band to play a kind of rock inspired by the devil.
Its beginnings can be traced back to 1984, but three years later a seven-song album was released called Fire and Steel.
At that time, the band consisted of two brothers, supposedly half-Hungarian, bassist Sigurður and singer and guitarist Steinþór, who bore the family name Nicolai. They were supported by drummer Jóhann Richardsson (Jói Motorhead), who had made the garden famous with Egó a few years earlier. The trio had probably formed the band from the beginning.
The album was recorded at the Gný recording studio, which at the time had rental facilities in the basement of the YCMA on Holtavegur, and the music was probably not entirely in the spirit of the Christian values of the owners of the house, who saw no other way than to tell Eyþór Arnalds and his friends who ran the studio to leave the premises when they came to the band for recording. It had not helped that the original Sverrir Stormsker, who had been there during the recordings, had used the pulpit of Rev. Friðrik Friðriksson, which was kept there in the premises, for a photo shoot for the album cover, and somehow this had also reached the ears of the YMCA people.
Kristinn Nicolai, the third brother, designed the album cover, which was never sold in Iceland, but pirated copies of the album on cassette and CD have been bought and sold online.
It is not known when Flames of Hell ceased to exist, but it must have been due to the drummer’s irregularities.
I also went through my collection of books on Icelandic music looking for any references to the band. While there are only a few books in English on the country’s music history (though academic presses seem to be in love with collections of articles about the music of the last 20-30 years…), I’ve always made a point of grabbing Icelandic-language copies of non-translated works, both for the photos and for situations exactly like this. I worked through the stack with low expectations, until I got to my second-to-last book in the stack and there it was, an entry in the index for Flames of Hell! The book is titled Eru Ekki Allir Í Stuði – Rokk á Íslandi á Siðustu Öld (Not Everyone Is Happy – Rock in Iceland in the Last Century) by Gnnar Lárus Hjálmarsson, aka Dr. Gunni, notable Icelandic rocker and historian and all around cool guy. Originally published in 2001 the book had eluded me for years and years until I finally emailed Gunni himself and asked about it. He didn’t have a copy for me… until I got a follow up from him about six months later! Anyway, here’s what Gunni wrote about Flames of Hell, as translated by Google Translate:
Only the most profound thinkers in the death and heavy rock department know the album Fire and Steel made by the band Flames of Hell in 1987 and released by Draconian the same year. Everything surrounding this album is very mysterious. It has never been played publicly in Iceland and the album has never been released here.
The band is made up of brothers Sigurdur and Steinthor Nicolai, whose father is of Hungarian descent and runs a car tuning shop in Reykjavik. The sons are tall and strong and only wear black. They sing and play guitar and bass, but the third man on the album was drummer Joe “Motorhead”. The third Nicolai brother is called Kristinn and is an artist in Spain. He made the album cover.
So what about the music? Well, one thing I know for sure is that Steinþór’s vocal deliver is absolutely unhinged. High pitched and strangled, it’s like the bastard cousin to the style of the NWOBHM bands from the same period. There’s nothing soaring here. On the title track “Fire and Steel” it sounds like like he’s actually on fire. And you know, I’m kind of here for it. A lot of reviews trash Fire and Steel, and while I agree it’s unpolished and the recording is a tad low, overall I dig it. The guitar work is decent and if nothing else the vocal separate it from the pack – on “Evil” one of Steinþór’s bandmates grabs the mic a few times and the dichotomy is striking, which just adds to the allure.
As near as I can tell Fire and Steel isn’t on any of the streaming services (not surprising), but it is out there to be found on YouTube! so you can give it a listen.