Black Crucifixion are/were an ultra-obscure early black metal band from the Arctic Circle. Lappland, to be specific, which is in the northernmost part of Finland, where it’s fuckin’ dark 24 hours a day in the winter time. You have any idea what that can do to a person? Well, listen to this and find out. “The Fallen One of Flames” was originally released as a demo tape, limited to 250 copies, in 1992, and has since been traded and dubbed thousands of times by twisted, black-hearted corpsepaint kids the world over. The CD version doesn’t actually sound much better than a third generation Memorex in a dirty, scratched-up case, but that just adds to the necro-flavor. As you might have guessed from the time and place it came from, the BC sound is total Hellhammer/Celtic Frost worship, only with these weird, spacey vox blowing like gusts of eerie wind on top. Imagine Damon Edge from Chrome singing Morbid Tales, and you’ve nailed it. The exception is “Goddess of Doom”, a static-y speed-fest that goes for more of a primitive death metal gorefest, but otherwise, it’s all hollow-eyed whispers and sludge-thrash guitars. They also burst into full-on rock n’ roll riffs twice, once at the end of “Goddess” and once in the middle of “Flowing Downwards” when it suddenly sounds like a really muddy Karma to Burn song, but that may have been accidental. At any rate, it’s a pretty unique sounding piece of work, and bears almost no resemblance to the screechy, keyboard-banging Satanic-lite vampire fashion model jive passing itself off as black metal these days. This is the real stuff, raw and confused and stumbling around in the dark. Groovy.

PS: Includes brief but well-written liner notes by former Black Crucifixion frontman, Fornicator. He ends with “We burned no churches and enjoyed the music. I hope you’ll do the same.”