DEATHWiSH _________________________________________________________________________ Artist : Black Crucifixion Album : Triginta Label : Independent Year : 2021 Genre : Black Metal Encoder : LAME 64bits version 3.100 (http://lame.sf.net) -b 320 Playtime : 35:07 Source : WEB/WAV Bitrate : 320 kbps Size : 84.50MB MB _________________________________________________________________________ 1. Night Birds Fall Upon You 5:05 2. Beyond Linkola 3:11 3. Throneburner 3:34 4. Bitten By the Long Frosts Of Life (Live) 4:46 5. Frailest (Live) 3:16 6. As Black As the Roses (As Weak As My Smile) (Live) 3:18 7. Wrath Without Hate (Live) 3:47 8. Retaliation (Live) 4:23 9. Black Crucifixion (Live) 3:47 _________________________________________________________________________ ôBeing the odd one out. ThatÆs Black CrucifixionÆs existence in a nutshell. TheyÆve been around since the very birth of Finnish black metal, yet they never released a classic Finnish black metal album. ThereÆs no Ugra-Karma or Drawing Down the Moon in the bandÆs discography.ö Those are the first three sentences of the intro paragraph of the interview article I conducted with Forn and wrote in early 2013 right on the heels of the release of Coronation of King Darkness. I believe I had strung those words together already before even having the discussion with him, because when it came to Black Crucifixion I, too, was consumed by toying with the big question if Black Crucifixion deserve to be mentioned alongside with Beherit, Impaled Nazarene and Archgoat or not. Well, if it was good enough for an intro back thenà However, I do feel that it still very nicely describes the place that is forever reserved for Black Crucifixion ôin the grand scheme of thingsö as I wrote back in 2013 and apparently still do, as if there wasnÆt a more hackneyed expression for an ontological structure. Yet something has changed. The meaning those words create when they are placed one after another in that very exact way has changed. ItÆs still the same words, so, then, during the past eight years it must be the band that has changed. Or developed rather. IÆm very glad that 2013 interview captured Black Crucifixion in what now, in hindsight, seems almost like a defining moment for the band. I walked into FornÆs ôrelatively fancy office roomö (still gotta love that) to interview a band I thought was interesting from a historical perspective and a band that had always had potential and good songs but also a band that, perhaps, had something to prove. Now, listening to that roughly one-hour interview recording for the purpose of this writeup I realize even better that which I already realized a couple of months after the interview and after spending enough time with the monumental record that is Coronation of King Darkness. Black Crucifixion had developed into a band whose music was even more engaging than it was ôinterestingö. They had developed into a band whose music had become timeless in the sense that its worth as a historical artefact started feeling secondary to its quality and listenability, if even that, and its position in some order of precedence or some other hierarchical collective they were never even part of as irrelevant as it fucking rightfully should be anyway, again, ôin the grand scheme of thingsö. What that defining moment did is that it also changed all of Black CrucifixionÆs music. It made ôSerpent of Your Holy Gardenö sound û not like the BC anthem it used to be û but, even better, a brilliant song that still only had half of the brilliance they would later exhibit. In 2013 Forn said Hope of Retaliation was a promise of things to come, but now in 2021 itÆs easy, perhaps somewhat anachronistically, to hear that promise already on The Fallen One of Flames, as if everything they had done before had prepared for the big Coronation. When Lightless Violent Chaos was released, I was fairly unmoved. Not because I didnÆt like the album. On the contrary. It was fucking great, as expected after what happened in 2013, so nothing surprising there. We like to look back to find and retrace every path weÆve ever walked for the sole purpose of walking them again and again. ThatÆs our pathetic existence in a nutshell. Running in circles. Intuitively that feels like how most bands and artists û also the good ones û exist and, if theyÆre lucky, prosper. Knowing that makes me respect the individuals and artists who make their way out of those mental cages and do it successfully even more. However, for Black Crucifixion to reach their musical potential breaking the molds was imperative. As Forn told back in 2013 they spent most of the first 20 years of Black Crucifixion trying to find the right path while ôcarrying ideas and riffs from the day the band started writing musicö. In this way the band Promethean or the album Faustian Dream donÆt feel like sidesteps, because they fulfilled their purpose in Black CrucifixionÆs quest for finding a way to where they are right now with all the stuff they think has been worth holding onto for 30 years. And if Forn is to be believed it might be the end of the trail they found on Hope of Retaliation. This milestone, together with the end of their third decade as a band, is aptly celebrated with the release of Triginta, a companion piece to that aforementioned magnificent little album that, too, has changed over the years. The trail has led Black Crucifixion to an edge of a cliff. And by now we should have learned theyÆre not the type of a band who turn back. But the question still lingers: Does Black Crucifixion deserve the right to be mentioned alongside Beherit, Impaled Nazarene and Archgoat? I firmly believe they donÆt. Instead, Black Crucifixion has developed into the caliber of a band that deserves to be mentioned next to no one. https://www.metal-archives.com/bands/Black_Crucifixion/4353 https://blackcrucifixion.bandcamp.com/album/triginta _________________________________________________________________________ ... For those eviltunes there is only one ...