Deicide — Once Upon The Cross & Serpents Of The Light

From Dissonance Productions Cherry Red’s extreme metal reissue label here, we have a CD release, bringing together the third and fourth albums from Florida-based ‘n’ Satan worshipping death metal band Deicide. There’s 1995’s Once Upon The Cross, and 1997’s Serpents Of The Light- both of which originally appeared on Roadrunner Records.

The two-disc set is presented in a six-panel gloss digipak. On its outside, we find simple but effective red texts against a black background, with a white pentagram and upside-down cross graphic on the front cover. With inside the artwork for each album under each CD. Also featured is a sixteen-inlay booklet- this features a new write-up about the band/ releases from the likes of David Gray(Akercocke/ Voices/The Antichrist Imperium), band pictures, and poster/ album art. Both albums clock in at/ around the half an hour mark- meaning they could have both easily fit on one CD. So it’s great to see Dissonance Productions putting each album on its own disc, as lesser labels wouldn’t have gone to this effort.
 
So first up we have Once upon the Cross- this appeared in April of 1995, and it was produced by Scott Burns- who of course really became Mr Death Metal in the 90s, due to the number of bands using him. The album features nine tracks- with the album coming in at twenty-eight minutes and ten seconds. The album followed the template set by their second album 1992’s Legion, with largely speeding Death metal and growled ‘n’ bayed vocals, though we do get a few more neat duo soloing moments from Eric and Brian Hoffman. We go from the tight ‘n’ punchy “Christ Denied” with its central rapid chug ‘n’ shorn focused riff, and great speeding-off moments. Onto slamming bass meat, battering drums, and deep billow growls/ barks “Trick Or Betrayed” which also features some marvellous spiralling solo work. We have the open ‘n’ prime evil-like speeding Thrash riffing of “Behind The Light Thou Shall Rise”. Towards the end of the record some of the tracks become a little too close to each other in both sound/ pace, but on the whole, Once upon the Cross is a rewarding enough ride into speeding DM.
 
Moving onto disc two we have 1997’s Serpents Of The Light, which featured ten tracks, it was once again produced by Mr Burns, with a runtime of thirty minutes and thirty-eight seconds. The production has a few more dynamics/ layers to it, and the band seem to focus more on creating more distinctive/stand-alone tracks- instead of just blacked DM rapidity and nothing more- which sadly the tail end of the last record suffered from. There is also more thought into using the vocals in a more varied manner, and on the whole, they are a lot clearer to hear/ figure out what is been said. We open with battering galloping drums, speeding riff chugg, and long growled pre-chorus vocals of the title track. There is the spiral mid-paced sinister simmer riff of “I’m No One” which features a great meaty breaking down and searing solo lines. With the album playing out with the grim chug, smarting drums, and rapid-to-moodily spat vocal growls of “Father Bakers” which once again features some shorter touches of searing soloing. Of the two albums here this is certainly the more varied- yes it’s still largely a speeding to mid-pace DM, but there seems more care and concern about making a more consistent record.
 
It's certainly wonderful to see these albums back once more- as they’d been out-of-print for a few years, with copies starting to go for silly prices. Also if you are a fan of the band, Dissonance Productions put out Crucifixion: The Early Years at the tail end of last year- this three-disc set brought together the band’s first demo, and their  first two albums