Originally written by Ian Duncan-Brown.
Satan’s Host play pretty average old school death metal with occasional power metal touches, though they classify themselves as black metal. If you poke around a bit on their website, you’ll see a bunch of silly pictures of the band wearing goth makeup, and their preposterous satanic posturing made me feel pretty lukewarm towards them. I will say that their music is better than what you would expect based on their image, but they really aren’t an especially interesting band. I have no idea why a group would release a 73 minute long death metal album – your music better be absolutely spellbinding if your album passes the one hour mark, and this material is far from captivating. If Satan’s Host had consolidated the music on Burning the Born Again… (A New Philosophy) into a 40 minute chunk, not only would it have been more digestible, but also the average quality would have significantly increased. There are tons of good moments on this album, but it’s drudgery to listen to the whole thing due to the abnormal playing length and the frequent instances of uninspired writing. Perhaps I’m being too harsh on Satan’s Host, but they deserve to be bitched out for burying their talent with gaudy imagery and overblown songwriting.
Like I’ve said, there is simply too much material here. I listened to one sample song on the band’s site before agreeing to review this album, and based on that track I thought I would really enjoy this record. I probably would have if it had been shorter. If you start listening to Burning the Born Again, you’ll think it’s good at first, but as the record drags on and on, you’ll probably find yourself utterly bored. Every member of the band performs with skill, so why is it that they produce such tiresome material? Not knowing when to end a song naturally leads to a deduction from the songwriting score.
The musicianship is solid. There’s not a whole lot to say about that. The production is good as well, though the drums don’t mesh with the mix as well as they could. The bottom line is that this is a band with talent but no ability to present themselves favorably. Dudes, send me something to review when you get focused and release something that’s 45 minutes or less. Until then, I’m not interested.
