When I first put this CD in I was very skeptical. Playing primitive black metal with raw, or in this case, rather non-existing production is not a big accomplishment. Owing to the shortness of this EP/MCD, I could actually get more listens of it on my way to work, and slowly my opinion has begun to change. This is kvlt, no doubt I thought, but somehow Black Crucifixion was not praying at the Mayhem or any other early days Norwegian black metal altar. No grind speeds, no blastbeats, no banshee screams, plenty of bottom end with solid bass lines, uncomplicated, but quite structured riffs, no endless washboard tremolo. The name reads black metal, the band photos look black metal, but the sound is not black metal as we have come to know it from Euronymous (RIP) and Co. And then I read the booklet, something I should have done immediately after the first listen. Boys and girls, if available, always read the booklet, you can learn a lot and realize how little it is that you know, just like yours truly.

Turns out, Black Crucifixion is a Finnish band from Oulu, the city close to the Polar Circle which also gave us Sentenced. The absence of the sun for half a year there must be breeding some serious darkness in peoples’ minds. Whether Black Crucifixion claim about being the northernmost black metal band is correct I don’t know, but Oulu is north of Norwegian cities of Trondheim, Bergen and Oslo. What is, for sure, true that Black Crucifixion could not have been ripping anybody off at the time of The Fallen One of Flames creation as it was originally penned in 1991! Here is a vision of someone else on how black metal should be sounding.

Much closer conceptually to Bathory and Celtic Frost than Mayhem and Darkthrone, Black Crucifixion create doomed out black metal, also bathing some parts of their songs in some twisted rock’n’roll. Both Intro and Outro on the EP have been composed by Holocausto Vengeance of Beherit and have undeniable mystic Black Mess quality about them, with creepy synthesizers and subliminal genderless whispers. Flowing Downwards is the blackened doom cut of the EP with steady measured drumbeats, murky and terribly recorded, but hit powerfully and at the right times. I can liken the vocals, and even some of the approach, to what Deathspell Omega does with some of their songs. Master Spirit and Goddess of Doom see the tempo picked up, and guitars play the sick combo of thrash’n’roll.

The music on The Fallen One of Flames may be less than professional, but it is nonetheless historic. Originally recorded only as 250-copy limited edition tape, this outpouring from a few young Finns was probably a rarity. Remastering the EP gives it more audience, but it does remove neither naiveté nor rawness of this recording. Some of the best descriptions came from the guitarist Fornicator. In his liner notes he reflects on what “true black metal” is and why Black Crucifixion only put together basically two recordings. When “hundreds and hundreds of bands started painting their faces and wearing black jeans” they exited the scene, they did it “no more”. “Were we true black metal? I’d say that we were true as fuck. And fake as hell. Fake because we surely were not the devils that we portrayed ourselves as. And true because this music came from our very hearts” – he says. Most importantly though “We enjoyed the music and burned no churches. I hope you’ll do the same”. I could not have said it better myself.