Death is June - Deicide's "Once Upon the Cross"

 

The band's third album finds them really dialing everything into its final form, and is some of the most classic death metal production to be commited to an album. It compliments there riffing, which opens the album with something equally brutal and catchy. However, when this album came out, the more mainstream vocal approach from Benton had me thinking they were becoming too much like other death metal bands, so it is good for me to listen back to get a better perspective, as even "Christ Denied," which I would not have called my favorite song when I first bought this album, is some tight-ass riffing. The vocals are more about where he places his voice than the layers of demon vocals. 

"When Satan Rules This World" is more streamlined, but it balances the brutality out. It is not as blistering fast, though there are passages where the double bass does pick up the pace. Lyrically, things are consistent with who they are without being over the top. Even when they speed up going into "Kill the Christian." The first song that feels like filler is "Trick or Betrayed," as it races to hell on a flurry of rabid drumming. Without a doubt, the best song on the album is "They are the Children of the Underworld," which runs off some amped up thrashing chugs. It certainly has the strongest chorus. 

They resort to some blasting for " Behind the Light Thou Shall Rise," which sounds the most like what they did on the "Legion" with the locked-in bass creating a machine-like rumble to streamroll. The vocal preformance is a little more obligatory and Cookie Monster. I forgot about "To Be Dead" as I must have not made it past "They Are the Children of the Underworld" most of the time. Like the previous song, it resorts to the approach used on "Legion". They close the album with "Confessional Rape" showing they were groundbreakers in the # MeToo movement. It coasts on the wave of the double bass, with the vocals having more purpose than in some songs. I will give this a 9.5 as the songwriting has matured for what would do down as one of the heaviest and best dialed in death metal albums.

pst229