Serpents of the Light

Steve Asheim—the drummer, cofounder, and de facto group leader of Deicide—has called 1997’s Serpents of the Light the peak of the original Deicide lineup. It's easy to see why. The album combines all the different aspects that the group had refined up to that point in their career, going all the way back to the raw and bristling black metal of their teenage years. By this point, black metal had come into vogue, and its resurgence registers in Glen Benton’s new vocal style. While on previous albums he had adopted a guttural growl, songs like “Bastard of Christ” and “Father Baker’s” use a famous double-tracked vocal technique meant to invoke demonic possession. The tighter, colder riffs of “Blame It on God” and “I Am No One” also point toward the influence of Bathory, though Deicide blend those early touchstones with the beefy, blocky rhythms they developed later in their career. If Deicide’s brand of death metal blended American and European influences, then “Serpents of the Light,” “Slave to the Cross,” and “This Is Hell We’re In” are its platonic ideal—a perfect fusion of Slayer and Mayhem.