Review by Sam on August 3, 2026.

Yes, it is most certainly true that by the time of Deicide’s fourth full-length, the novelty of unrelenting blasphemy was beginning to fade. One could even venture to say that the band’s personnel were starting to show signs of boredom as this record began a gradual decline in quality, until said quality completely fell off a cliff before the departure of the brothers Hoffman in 2004. Indeed, the 2006 additions of Ralph Santolla (RIP) and Jack Owen absolutely revitalized the Deicide machine and I will suggest that this upgrade in the guitar department saved Uncle Glen and Steve from disappearing into utter irrelevancy.

Serpents Of The Light is not my favorite Deicide album, and judging from the bulk of the headlines of my esteemed colleagues here, it’s not really anyone’s favorite. Well, except for one guy. I hadn’t listened to this record in years until I was reminded of it the other day by a fella named Mauricio Weimar. He’s a Brazilian guy who is a former extreme metal drummer (check out his band Nephasth) who now resides in Norway, where he is a music teacher. He has a YouTube channel called Extreme Drums where he mostly posts instructional videos of how to play the drums to his favorite metal songs, and his taste is exquisite. He always begins with a slowed-down version of the song at hand so you can see clearly what he is playing, then does a demonstration at full speed. Weimar is a funny dude, and I would recommend his videos to all metalheads, not just drummers. I was recently perusing his channel when I stumbled onto a video for the song 'Serpents Of The Light', and immediately the genius of Steve Asheim jogged my memory, and I had no choice but to revisit the 1997 Deicide record.

Steve’s drum pattern for the meat and potatoes of the song kicks major ass. It’s a basic 4/4 half-time feel of sustained 32nd note kick drums held down with 16th notes on the ride, but he accents a dotted quarter with his various crashes and chinas beginning on the downbeat. This is top-notch creativity with equal parts polyrhythm and brutality, and this seething undercurrent foreshadows the epic lead guitar later on in the track, which is some of Eric and Bryan’s finest in their entire career, much less the album.

So yeah, the title song 'Serpents Of The Light' is one of the best in the Deicide catalog, but once you get past the halfway point of the record, it becomes clear that Floridian fiends were closing in on creative bankruptcy. The sixth track, 'Slave To The Cross', is pretty much a carbon copy of 'Blame It On God', rhythmically speaking, just with different words and (maybe) different notation. That’s not to say that this album is a complete waste of time; 'Bastard Of Christ' and 'I Am No One' display a well-oiled Deicide doing what satan put them here to do, namely being propelled by the force of nature that is Steve Asheim. The soloing virtue of the Hoffman brothers is on display throughout the record, though none of their subsequent leads match the splendor of the title track.

Finally, a word on the production: it’s paper-thin, and a notable step down from the preceding and beefy Once Upon The Cross. If you’re interested in hearing Asheim’s awesomeness in the title song that I described above, do yourself a favor and look up the Extreme Drums vid first. Serpents Of The Light came out in 1997 and Scott Burns was still at the controls, but I’m sure at this point in his career he was already dreaming about information technology or whatever the fuck it was that he left the music biz for. This is an album that is sorely in need of remastering, and I have scoured the internet for any signs of such a version. Evidently, one does exist exclusively on vinyl. If you’re new to Deicide, this is not the proper introduction. Please begin at the beginning.

Rating: 6.6 out of 10