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This Mexican black metal band has been around a while, as evidenced by this being a compilation of the In Lucescitae Tristis Hiei demo from 1992 and an unreleased rehearsal recording from 1994. Xibalba play black metal raw and dirty, almost as basic as it gets, but they've incorporated some subtle (and sometimes not so subtle) rock elements that give some of the songs a bit of a black 'n' roll vibe, without being quite it. That's not unusual these days, but that's not something I recall hearing in releases from the first half of the '90s from bands playing raw and minimalistic black metal (not that I've heard them all, mind you). Those bits and pieces share some similarities with the first wave of black metal (think Venom and the likes), but Ancients is largely filled with that early to mid-90s sound when bands played their black metal minimalistic, raw, dirty, kind of sloppy, and somehow made it work for those of us with disturbed minds. If you're the type who enjoys raw, dirty, evil black metal from the first half of the '90s, you're pretty much guaranteed to find something to like here.