Band:	Satan's Host
Album:	Pre-Dating God Part 1
Style:	Blackened heavy metal
Release date:	January 18, 2015
A review by:	Doc G.

01. Hell's Disciples
02. Embers Of Will
03. Valley Of Blood
04. Pre-Dating God
05. Greed, Lust, Hate, War
06. After The End
07. See You In Hell [Grim Reaper cover]

Satan's Host - hosting a bunch of cool sounds with little clue how to arrange them.

Unfortunately, Pre-Dating God, really, just comes across as a resume for Satan's Host more than an actual album. Also unfortunate, is in fact, this is a double album. What compounds the issue here is that these albums aren't entirely bad, in fact, pretty promising, if it weren't for thoroughly aimless nature of the whole affair. It's like reading the resume of someone with multiple Ph.D's who typed the whole thing out in comic sans whilst throwing spell-check to the wind. It's a little baffling.

Satan's Host play an initially pleasing show of US power metal with such thrashed-out ferocity it hints at something a little more extreme than mere power metal. It sounds something akin to Ripper-era Iced Earth material made more aggressive through both the riffs and the vocals.

Even though Pre-Dating God sounds sort of like a poor mans version of some Iced Earth, Nevermore and Iron Maiden material with a little more grit, there's still some fantastic stuff happening here. Despite the fact that the "extreme" elements are sparse, it's still a rare treat to hear power metal so gritty and raw. The riffs are thick, the melodies catchy, and the vocals are both charismatic and enticing without being annoyingly histrionic.

All great bits, but no good songs.

Perhaps Satan's Host were going for some "song story" approach with this one. You know, with each track take the listener on a journey that ends in a different place from where it began, rather than simply playing a catchy tune. It would make sense, given the hefty length of every song. That approach certainly has it's appeals, and if properly done, gives the album a higher re-playability factor. With Satan's Host, it comes across as meandering above anything else.

As that hockey dude once said "You miss 100% of the shots you don't take", Satan's Host doubled their chances of creating a great album by taking a second swing...Maybe things will shape up for Part II?

...To be continued...