Flame - Virgin Life (1997)

"Flame", 1997.


Flame formed in 1996. The group went on to release a few demos throughout the year and 1997 and later released their first mini-album, "Dive", in August of 1997. The album was a smash success in the underground visual scene and in June of 1998, Flame released their second mini-album "Face of NoFake", which would unfortunately pale in comparison to the strong sales of "Dive", and presumably due to its lukewarm sales, the group would not release another album, instead focusing on touring throughout the next few years until eventually dissolving all together in 2001. After Flame split, all of the members of the group then seemed to have retired from the visual scene. In 2017, bassist Shige returned as a member of the indies group Dress or Nude, although he would eventually leave in 2018 when his earlier group, the legendary visual group Ange∞Graie officially reunited for the first time in over 20 years. This revival would also include Flame's frontman Kazuhito and guitarist Hiro, who would return from their retirements for the first time since Flame's split in 2001, although drummer Hiroyuki would not return and actually ended up passing away the year Ange∞Graie reunited. In his honor, the three remaining members of Flame who were then active as Ange∞Graie would reunite as Flame for one night only in his honor in December of 2018. Kazuhito, Hiro and Shige would then all continue on as Ange∞Graie, touring throughout the majority of 2019 before dissolving again in 2020, presumably due to the COVID19 pandemic. Afterwards, Kazuhito and Hiro would then return to their respective retirements while Shige would join the indies group Schizophrenica (スキゾフレニカ), which also ended up folding in 2021. Shige then joined the underground group That's Enough, which he remains active in today as well as another underground group, Bluedie. In 2024, Kazuhito returned to the visual scene again as a member of the session group K.W. Fellows, although it has only played one live to date in November of 2024 and its current and future whereabouts are unknown.