During the last few years, many record companies dive into their archives and dig up old bands and present them to the world as the new old heroes of its music genre, talking about rough diamonds and albums that made the scene what it is now. Most of the times we don't even know that those albums exist! Good for us! But sometimes a smile cracks in your face, just like with this one. So, now it's turn for BLACK CRUCIFIXION's Promethean Gift to hit the stores again.

The band was 'conceived' in Rovaniemi Lapland, in 1991, featuring Forn (vocals) and Blacksoul (guitar) with BEHERIT members Sodomatic Slaughter (drums) and Wennstrom (bass) joining them.  The band has only two releases: The Fallen One of Flames (a 250-copies limited edition tape) in 1991 and the Promethean Gift mini LP in 1993, with E.Henrik taking over the bass. Both mini albums were released in a limited number of copies, since the band believed in limited editions. They were saying that ...it was never music for the masses. They didn't like the path that the Black Metal scene took, since they believed  (and not being 100% wrong) that it was becoming a trend.
The album sounds like BATHORY, CELTIC FROST, SAMAEL, BEHERIT (Drawing Down The Moon), TIAMAT (in the early days) and NECROMANTIA. Deep vocals that in some points reminded me of Johan Edlund's voice at the masterpiece called Clouds, heavy doom-ish riffs and dark atmosphere. It is a mid tempo album with some outbursts especially by the drums. Here we are dealing with eight tracks that stood the test of time more than well. Of course the sound of the two demo songs doesn't have the quality of the first five, but conveys a truly dark atmosphere.

Even though I didn't write much about Promethean Gift, I am sure that if you know (and who doesn't) the previously mentioned bands, you have a pretty much clear view of what you are going to listen in this re-release. And if you love their sound in the early 90's then you have to listen to that album. This re-release is definitely worth getting, if you want to have an as complete as possible picture (together with the other releases, of course) of this band's works.