From the somewhat ridiculous album title "The Great American Scapegoat 666" (what happened to the 665 previous ones?) to the cover art depicting Satan holding an American flag remodeled to feature a baphomet, something seems to be a little bit strange about SATAN'S HOST. This might be because they started out as a Power Metal band back in the late 70s, but the over-the-top satanic lyrics and imagery were part of their repertoire even then.
The very idea of a Power Metal band turned Black/Death Metal is enough to make even the toughest headbanger cringe, but don't let this potentially puke-inducing combination put you off. As a matter of fact, sans the 50 second guitar solo, “7 Strings,” there is basically nothing left of their spandex-wearing roots on this album, which should be a relief to just about everybody. In fact, what we have here is a genre mixing of the extreme-Metal variety, including the aforementioned Black and Death factors as well as some Thrashed-out solos to make it all more interesting. The riffs are just about exactly as heavy as hell, and the vocals are standard-fare evil-sounding cookiemonster growls, which is fine by me considering how flamboyant the lyrics are when describing their adoration for the Prince of Darkness.
In fact, unless you have some kind of mental defect, you will be able to tell that these guys aren't kidding around when it comes to worshiping Satan just by looking at their album titles, songs, website, or even their band name. Yes, it's cheesy and obnoxious, but if you're able to ignore their preaching you'll probably discover that the music has more to it than the lame voice-over of the intro, imaginatively titled “Invocation 666”. For example, the especially silly-named “The Cursing – Vampyric Evil-Eye” has a shredding riff with solos that might literally melt your face off. Posers beware! It's not often bands that are basically Black Metal can pull off old-school solos without turning out as symphonic masturbation, but these imps make it sound great. It should also be mentioned that the first real track, “Ave Lucifer”, displays their ability to work with slower melodic riffs as well, even though the subject matter is virtually identical to track number six (-six-six), “Hail Satan”.
To my surprise, "The Great American Scapegoat 666" turns out to be a pretty solid effort from these American veterans. While it might not be the most intellectually challenging piece of music out there, it certainly succeeds in sounding evil and hellish, and they probably would have without the elaborately thematic lyrics as well. If you're religious and easily offended at blasphemy, you should probably stay at least 666 feet away from this at all times though. See what I did there? I can be evil too.
-Ravenhearted
Link