#ironflame

RELEASE DATE: 14th of August 2026 LABEL: High Roller Records Since the 1980s, Cleveland has always been a fertile breeding ground for great heavy metal music. Ohio-based Andrew Della Cagna continues this tradition in true style. Over the past years, the multi-instrumentalist has been active in more than half a dozen bands, among them Brimstone Coven and Icarus Witch. His main priority, however,…

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Ironflame - Kingdom Torn Asunder

Despite how I like a lot of progressive, interesting, and unique music, I also love bands and albums that are just plain fun and don’t need to challenge anyone or anything. That’s what I’ve been getting into more the last handful of years, and there’s just something about bands and albums that are just fun. It might not blow your mind, but at the same time, it’s catchy, memorable, and worthwhile. A genre that can benefit from being more fun is heavy metal, especially traditional heavy metal, but there was a time when metal was really fun. A lot of my favorite bands and albums from that style are from the 1980s, such as Dio, Judas Priest, and Iron Maiden. Metal used to be a lot of fun, but a lot of bands now are too serious and they try too hard to be “real metal.” Being a metalhead these days is more about proving your credibility, versus just enjoying the music, but it’s cool to find bands that just have fun.

I brought up bands like Judas Priest and Iron Maiden, because the album I’m going to talk about today is in that vein. That album would be 2024’s Kingdom Torn Asunder by Ironflame. I found a brand new copy of this album at my local Half Price Books last week, and I had to check it out, because I’m all for hearing underground metal albums. I kind of knew who these guys were, because I’ve seen their albums on Bandcamp, just never bothered to give them a listen. I’ve been listening to a lot of metal, anyway, but I figured another album wouldn’t hurt. Truthfully, I wish I would have heard this album last year, because it would have been on my list, for sure. This album is so much fun, but it’s so good, and I absolutely can’t stop listening to it.

The thing is, though, there’s not much to truly talk about with this album. That doesn’t mean it’s bad, but this album is a basic heavy metal album that kind of sounds like Iron Maiden, just without the bloat that they have these days. If Iron Maiden kept to a straightforward sound, you’d get Ironflame, and that’s not a bad thing. The idea of the straightforward metal album is hard to come by these days, but Ironflame is here to keep that going. They’ve been around since 2017, but this is their fifth album, but my first introduction to them. Simply put, if you love Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, and all those bands, you’ll love these guys. It’s not trying to be anything new, challenging, or weird, but it gets the job done.