Say one
thing about Satan’s Host, say they are not afraid to try new things!
Host started out in ’77 and bloomed, as a pure power metal act, during the
mid-80’s. After breaking up and reuniting in the late 90’s, they took a turn to
the dark side – living up to their name and satanic lyrics – and released a
couple blackened death albums. The latter are some of the best American black
metal ever made, in my opinion. They returned to
a sort of hard line
prog-power style with their 2009 album, ”Power Purity Perfection…
999”.
Keeping to their tradition of changing style every decade
Host has now made something weird, but not all together bad. They've blended speedy power
metal, progressive heavy and King Diamond-ish operatic
metal (no falsetto though). It sounds very much like what I imagine a Broadway
Musical in Hell must sound like. The vocals are the best part – Harry Conklin of
Jag Panzer fame has a very broad voice.
Surviving my first disappointment that Host hadn't kept
a bit of their old black metal ugliness, I've come
to like this album for what it is: A romantic rendezvous between
speed metal drums and power metal guitars, though these are mere decoration of
an overall symphonic style.
The only thing that ruin this album – and accordingly the rating – is the
travesty of a last track gimmick: The cover version of Norwegian Wood by The
Beatles. Host has changed the lyrics, so they refer to church burning instead of
weed, and at some point I find that absolutely hilarious. However, concerning
the Fab Four, I have no humor at all! Never ever make a cover version of a
Beatles song. No matter what you do to it it will come off as cheap.
