UMUR Serpent Temptation (1996 version) is a re-release of the US death/ thrash act Incubus debut full-length studio album from 1988. The re-release version was released in 1996 by Radiation Records/ Nuclear Blast Records. The 1996 version of Serpent Temptation is not just a re-release though as the album features re-recorded vocal tracks, revised lyrics and new cover artwork.

Nothing in the music besides the vocals have been changed ( well some of the lyrics too, but the instrumental part of the album is untouched), so the music style on the album is still old school thrash metal with death metal influences. The re-recorded vocals are a great improvement over the weak vocals on the original version and drag the album even more into a death metal direction. It´s a bit of a shame Incubus didn´t opt to re-record some of the instrumental parts too. The drums could have prospered greatly from a re-recording.

Personally I think re-releases with re-recorded changes are seldom good ideas, mostly because I think original recordings ( for better or worse) should be left untouched. On the other hand, there are some releases that actually gets better with re-recorded changes and the 1996 version of Serpent Temptation is certainly one of those. I gave the original version a 2.5 rating. I´ll raise that to a 3 star rating for the re-release version.