No need for an introduction to this band, though if you're uninformed, Deicide plays Satanic death metal. The actual term for Deicide means "the killing of God". I think that the lyrics are mindless and their first 3 releases are about as far as I go with the band. With "Serpents of the Light", it was the beginning of them becoming lazy with their songwriting capabilities. To me, this is their last good release before the fall.
As I mentioned previously, Deicide plays what Glen calls them "Satanic Rock 'n Roll" or just in layman's terms Satanic death metal. The music that follows here features well constructed riffs in E-flat tuning. Eric and Brian's playing here are speedy guitar work. They don't fall short on that end. The lead guitar parts are however just mediocre. They seem to lack the energy and innovation that their first 2 releases dealt forth. So, nothing special on that end. What's the most worthy of mentioning are again the guitar riffs themselves.
Despite a lot of negativity that was mentioned about this album, I still think that "Once Upon The Cross" is quality when it comes to their musicianship. Heavy tremolo picking and catchy guitar work makes them not falling short of quality. The most notable songs for me would be the title track, "When Satan Rules His World" and "Trick Or Betrayed". However, the rest of the songs are still good, but these ones that I mentioned stuck with me the most.
The guitar riffs flow well in unison with the vocals. Glen has mostly a burly voice on here with not many backup screams. On their first 2 releases, his vocals make him sound like he was possessed. That wasn't featured so much on this album. But the voice still works well alongside the music. A lot of blast beating by Steve and the energy is still there. It's a shame that Deicide took a turn for the worst after this release.
Scott Burns does a great job on the production end of things. All of the guitars, vocals and drumming are well mixed in on here. Nothing lacking on that front. You can hear everything clearly without any problems. The rest of the band members also played a part on production. I like how it turned out. As a whole, their contributions made "Once Upon The Cross" to be a classic and quality death metal release.
Overall, this album is Deicide's final productive bout. After this one, they just got boring and lazy. What you'll find on here that's most notable are again the guitar riffs. They don't lack innovation whatsoever. I enjoyed the creativity and structure of them along with the proper amount of distortion on each song. This album is to me far from being boring. Their songwriting still packed in a good punch even though Glen's vocals were monotonous. Pick this one up, it's highly catchy and well worth the money.
