Vehemency ”Below the Surface of Cold Earth” proves that Clandestine Blaze fits great on short demo tape. If the monotonony and repetition of the full-lengths is too much for you, this demo is an ideal listen due to its short playing time and diverse material - ranging from the slow, atmospheric and melancholic wanderings of the title track (one of the best songs Clandestine Blaze has created) to the blunt Hellhammer / Celtic Frost worship track ”Weeping on the Cross”, and the malicious and desolate riffs (not to forget Aspa’s brilliant drumming) in ”Funeral of Humanity”.

Musically, ”Below the Surface of Cold Earth” doesn’t differ at all from Clandestine Blaze’s back catalogue: it is like a miniature version of a CB full-length, packed into a compact 18-minute whole, and those 18 minutes are of some of the highest quality Aspa has come up with so far. There is no filler material at all, and the whole demo is a very enjoyable experience of filthy, raw black metal without compromises. It would be hard to track down an original copy of the tape, but luckily this has been re-releasesed as a part of the Archives trilogy, on volume 2. Along with ”Deliverers of Faith” and ”Church of Atrocity”, ”Below the Surface of Cold Earth” belongs to Clandestine Blaze’s best material.