The Czech three-piece CRUX was formed back in the late 80s by ROOT’s mastermind Petr "Blackosh" Hošek, who at the time had joined forces for this side-project with bass player Roman Kríbek and drummer René "Evil" Kostelník. Unfortunately though CRUX was rather shortlived as ROOT was demanding more and more of Blackosh’s time, so he had to quit CRUX again in order to focus on his main band with "Evil" following him shortly after… Their only official musical legacy was the seven-song demo "Rev Smrti", which was recorded and released in the early 90s. Fans of obscure underground releases will probably know that there’s already been a CD re-release of this particular demo a couple of years ago… But back then the recordings were simply taken from an ordinary cassette, while this re-release on I Hate Records finally offers the original master tape version. And the sound is indeed suprisingly good, considering the fact that the band basically had almost no money nor the best equipment at the time. Even though I’ve personally never been a big fan of the Czech scene (i.e. ROOT, TÖRR and MASTERS HAMMER), I gotta admit that they were all very unique in their own way. And that goes for CRUX as well. All of their songs are skillfully performed, with various acoustical parts thrown in, while the spirit of old VENOM shines through in the writing in the same way as classic Thrash the old KREATOR way. The vocals are very charismatic and partly remind me on good old Abbath and add a little Black Metal flair to the whole phenomenon. Raw and catchy at the same time and best reflected in my personal favorite on here, the amazing crusher ‘Demons Of Darkness’! This CD also features 4 additional bonus tracks, while the 20-pages fat booklet offers in-depth liner-notes by "Blackosh" himself, as well as a bunch of old pictures and the lyrics for all of the songs. For all further info and ordering details head to www.ihate.se