Frost and Fire is also the title of the 1965 debut album by The Watersons

The Watersons

The Watersons were an English folk group from Hull, Yorkshire. They performed mainly traditional songs with little or no accompaniment. Their distinctive sound came from their closely woven harmonies.-Career:...

.

Frost and Fire is the debut album by the American heavy metal

Heavy metal music

Heavy metal is a genre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s, largely in the Midlands of the United Kingdom and the United States...

 band Cirith Ungol

Cirith Ungol (band)

Cirith Ungol was a Californian heavy metal band who formed in 1972 and split up in May 1992. They drew influences from other metal groups such as Black Sabbath and Thin Lizzy, as well as Iggy and the Stooges...

. Its music is generally faster and more simplistic than that of King of the Dead

King of the Dead (album)

King of the Dead is the second album by Cirith Ungol. It was produced by Cirith Ungol and released July 1984 on Enigma Records. It was re-released September 1999 on Metal Blade Records.Robert Garven in an interview:...

, which saw the band adopt a doom metal

Doom metal

Doom metal is an extreme form of heavy metal music that typically uses slower tempos, low-tuned guitars and a much "thicker" or "heavier" sound than other metal genres...

 style influenced heavily by progressive rock

Progressive rock

Progressive rock is a subgenre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s as part of a "mostly British attempt to elevate rock music to new levels of artistic credibility." John Covach, in Contemporary Music Review, says that many thought it would not just "succeed the pop of...

. The album was produced by Cirith Ungol and originally released by Cirith Ungol on Liquid Flames Records in 1980. The album was re-released in 1981 by Enigma Records

Enigma Records

Enigma Records was a popular rock and alternative American record label in the 1980s. It was initially a division of Greenworld Distribution, an independent music importer/distributor, which it split-off from in 1985 to become its own company...

, re-released again along with King of the Dead on one CD by One Way Records in 1995, and finally re-released again in September 1999 on Metal Blade Records

Metal Blade Records

Metal Blade Records is a record label which was founded by Brian Slagel in 1982. The U.S. corporate office for Metal Blade is located in Agoura Hills, California. It also has offices in Arizona, Germany, Japan, Canada, and the UK. The label is distributed in the U.S. by Sony BMG Music...

. A bootleg

Bootleg recording

A bootleg recording is an audio or video recording of a performance that was not officially released by the artist or under other legal authority. The process of making and distributing such recordings is known as bootlegging...

 picture disc version of this LP, limited to 500 hand-numbered copies, also exists. While Michael "Flint" Vujejia is credited as the bass player on this album, it has been confirmed in several interviews that Greg Lindstrom was actually the bassist on this album.

Robert Garven in an interview:

We wanted to make it big, but all of our music was so heavy and dark, we thought we would use our most commercial material on Frost and Fire, so that we would get air time and stuff. Although all the lyrics and some of the music on Frost and Fire were written by Greg, almost all of our songs over the years were a collaborative effort, some times "I" would even hum out parts until we got it right. Everything had to be perfect, sometimes leading to fist fights over riffs. Anyway, it just turned out Greg's songs had the more commercial sound. After Frost and Fire came out it was only played a couple of times on the LA radio station KLOS

KLOS

KLOS is an FM rock music radio station based in Los Angeles, California, that debuted in 1969. The station is owned by Cumulus Media. It is home to the nationally broadcast Mark & Brian radio show, and Off The Record host Uncle Joe Benson.-History:...

 because everyone said it was way too heavy..... So we figured FUCK IT!!! If they think that is heavy why are we holding back? Let's show them something really heavy!!! We wrote about thirty songs with Greg that have never been released, some not even on tape. It was only understandable that we put some on King of the Dead. Greg did not leave until after Frost and Fire, so we were writing songs up to the day he left.

The cover is painted by Michael Whelan

Michael Whelan

Michael Whelan is an American artist of imaginative realism. For more than 30 years he worked as an illustrator specializing in science fiction and fantasy cover art...

 and called 'Stormbringer

Stormbringer

Stormbringer is the name of the infamous black sword featured in a number of fantasy stories by the author Michael Moorcock. Created by the forces of Chaos, it is described as a huge, black sword covered with strange runes carved deep into its blade...

'. According to Greg Lindstrom, it is one of the best album covers. Lindstrom also says in an interview:

One reviewer in Kerrang!

Kerrang!

Kerrang! is a UK-based magazine devoted to rock music published by Bauer Media Group. It was first published on June 6, 1981 as a one-off supplement in the Sounds newspaper...

called Frost And Fire the worst heavy metal album ever recorded! I think a lot of critics at the time just didn't know who to compare us to and tended to dismiss us. But the fan reaction from all over the world was great. Unfortunately, our albums didn't have very good distribution and were often hard to find in stores. And that's part of the reason I quit the band. I felt I had reached a turning point in my life after graduating college and spending 10 years in the band. It was more than a year after Frost and Fire had been released, and sales were decent, but nothing was really happening for us, and I felt it was time to move on, which I did with much regret.

Track listing

All songs written by Greg Lindstrom

1. "Frost and Fire" - 3:35
2. "I'm Alive" - 4:58
3. "A Little Fire" - 3:46
4. "What Does It Take" - 3:36
5. "Edge of a Knife" - 4:30
6. "Better Off Dead" - 4:46
7. "Maybe That's Why" - 6:15

Band members

• Tim Baker - lead and backing vocals
• Jerry Fogle - guitars
• Greg Lindstrom - guitars, synthetizers, e-bow, backing vocals, bass (uncredited)
• Michael "Flint" Vujea - bass
• Robert Garven - drums, backing vocals

Production

• Tim Nelson - engineer
• Allen Zentz - mastering
• Randall L. Jackson - executive producer