Satan's Host-By the hands of the devil

Moribund
2011

Satan's Host bring back their original singer Harry Conklin (of Jag Panzer) for their newest album. Although he was listed as Leviathan Thisiren back during the decade he was originally with the band (1977-1987). The band broke up at that point, but guitarist Patrick Evil revived the name in the late 90's and began anew. In the 1980's the band had and American power metal style. However the newer version of the band had discovered black and death metal by that point. So the sound coming from this line-up of the band tends to combine the classic metal style with black and deth metal elements. The mix works better on "By the hands of evil" than on some of their other albums. The music is everything it should be in that it's loud, heavy and aggressive. Plus Harry Conklin tries hard to make it work. Now the silly devil lyrics just seem a bit distracting. At their age it just seems a joke and not a funny one. They try hard to make their blend of death metal and classic metal work and their experience and a great deal force helps greatly. Yet I still keeping thinking that the black metal parts don't flow as nicely as the classic metal parts. I enjoyed this album, but found it to be one where I saw more problems with it the more I listened to it. Parts that seemed powerful at first started to sound a little more clunky and the seams began to show upon repeated plays. A decent album, but I was far more impressed by the new Jag Panzer.