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Well, here is some truly filthy black shit. Hailing from San Francisco, Crebain released this debut demo back in 2003 to a limited number of 66 copies (each one signed in blood, naturally - Kvlt). I was already aware of sole member Ancalagon the Black's work through Crebain's excellent split album with Leviathan, so I was stoked to finally manage to track this little fucker down in MP3 format. It was well worth the hunt.

Supremely cold, dark and evil sounding, Crebain suck all the warmth from your soul for the demos full run time. Beginning with crow calls and a clap of thunder, the opening riffs blasts its way from your speakers in all its fuzzy glory, whilst retaining a nice, headbangable clarity for the thrashier riff sections which occasionally arise. Although the drums are played entirely by machine, they're not to obtrusive or noticeable in the demos mix at all, even managing to sound human at times. Vocally, A.T.B spits forth his lyrics in a frothy, mouth foaming rage - some of his screams (the one at the beginning of 'I Live to Kill' in particular) sound like an injured Fell Beast for fucks sake!! Completely badass. All in all, for a demo limited to such a low quantity, one might expect shitty blasturbation, with little riff structuring or quality - no so with this release. There are some really slow burning sections, which brood and crawl in equal measures - hell, there's even a fair bit of melody to be found, with the opening riff from 'By Our Talons Heaven Shall Fall' sounding like it could've come from an early Dissection album.

So, all those black metallers out there should keep an eye out for this. However unlikely it is to be found in its original blood daubed form, it is due for a re-issue shortly (so says A.T.B himself in my recent interview with him) so is well worth picking up once readily available without having to sell a limb in order to find it. True underground blackness.