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New Jersey's Arctic Flame has been slogging away since 2001 and Shake the Earth is album #4. Like on the previous three albums, Arctic Flame doesn't seem to be able to decide what they want to be. Sometimes they sound like a Euro Power Metal band and others like a US Metal band. Keys and big choruses on one song are followed by blues-based songwriting on the next. The vocals of Michael Clayton Moore are of the "love them or hate them" variety and fall into the latter category for me. His unpleasant warble is hampered even more by the terrible lyrics and ill-fitting vocal lines he's been saddled with. There are good riffs here and there but they are often followed by something that either doesn't flow or is just cliché and forced. The album ends with a couple of ballads ("Rain," a Uriah Heep cover, and "Seasons in the Cemetery (Garden of Stone)") that are so saccharine sweet diabetics will need their insulin to get through them.

Shake the Earth is another swing and another miss for Arctic Flame.