Band: Satan’s Host
Title: By The Hands Of The Devil
Label: Moribund Records
Distribution: Moribund Records
Release date: May 3rd 2011
Review: CD

Satan’s Host aren’t a logical Moribund-formation. This band does not stand for ‘regular’ Black-oriented Metal whatsoever, which sort of characterises Moribund. The vocals (by returning and original vocalist and Jag Panzer / Titan Force’s Harry Conklin!) Satan’s Host provide are not that uncommon within the Heavy / Power Metal scene, or the (Traditional) Doom scene: mainly melodic / melodious, harmonic and clean (yet sometimes with a rougher edge), with a few so-called high-pitched heavy metal-outbursts. Only sporadically a grunt or scream appears. And indeed this isn’t that evident for one of the strongest blaspheme labels around.
However, it has to do with both the musical approach and the lyrical concepts, the raison d’être of signing to Moribund. The latter deal with demonism, devil worship and the occult, you see.
And the musical approach, well, how refreshing. That ‘refreshment’ has nothing to do with originality or the creation of something renewing. No, Satan’s Host were formed centuries ago (at the end of the seventies!) and the retro-activity within the band’s music is a strength. This is Old School in all its aspects, no matter which basics lay beneath.
The rhythm section is hot stuff, flames from Purgatory with skull-hammering force and chirurgical precision. The leading riffs and the rhythm section are mainly Doom-based, yet of a varying kind. Making abstraction of the vocals, this material is Traditional Doom, Doom-Death, Heavy, Speed, Epic, Power, Thrash, Death and Black Metal, always from the earliest school. The result is both breath-taking and occult, yet ass-kicking and fiercely rocking. The combination of those ‘true metal’ vocals and the old school-inspired yet extreme instrumentation can scare you, but for Satan’s Host is works astonishingly well. And somehow it does scare you, though the breath-taking way.
The main tempo is rather slow-paced, and more than once it brings my thoughts to the earliest years of the Epic / Traditional / Occult Doom-scene. Especially when Harry’s voice isn’t too high and when the rhythm exhales an odour of a nightly graveyard, Doom gets alive. …dark-edged, of course…
Yet not every track, or every part of a track, can be seen as ‘Doom’ whatsoever. The opening riff on the album (through the title-song) is purely Death Metal-based, soon followed by a blasting drum salvo – further on a Speed Metal-solo in the middle, blackish riffs, more accelerations, an obscure atmosphere, varying vocals in general – in its totality a pleasure to listen at, and making (me) hungry to continue! The second track, Shades Of The Unlight, is one of the most intense ones, and, just to mention something, it is clearly influenced by Iron Maiden and Mercyful Fate, penetrated with elements from the heaviest Metal genres, among which some purely My Dying Bride’ish riffs (somewhere in the middle, for f*ck’s sake). This bla bla bla goes on. Before The Flame, with some purely blackened pieces and epic, Candlemass-meet-Bathory-ian riffs… A mix of Obituary / Bolt Thrower-riffs, and Judas Priest-ones, combined with Solstice, Cathedral, Candlemass in Black Hilted Knife, penetrated with sluggish Black Atmospheres and primary Death Majesty. And so on… But it must be said: the first part of By The Hands Of The Devil is better than the second one.
Another ‘differing’ track is Bleeding Hearts Of The Damned, which is more related to, let’s say, Arcana or Dead Can Dance, yet not the orchestral side (but the acoustic one). And even though I do not like the song, I feel I need to mention the The Beatles-cover Norwegian Wood, performed with new, own, lyrics, somewhat bloodier than the originals.
Top release for those who prefer their doom the dark and heavy way!

85/100

Ivan Tibos.