Agony of Death introduces a few new elements into the Holy Moses formula that create quite a fascinating contrast to the harsh, straight modern thrash of the previous two albums. Most prominent of these are the futuristic synthesizer intros and outros used throughout the album, courtesy of Ferdy Doernburg (Axel Rudi Pell, etc), which give it an atmosphere you would never have discovered on the older records. It's almost like the album were going for a Blade Runner or Mass Effect type blend of future thrash, which frankly is a delicious idea, but mostly executed here through Ferdy's contributions and the psychological lyrical explorations of social castigation and other problems at large. There are also some nice leads, mixed a little low against the rhythm guitars but feeling flush and atmospheric, and a number of other guest contributions that lend the album some needed character.
I say that, because at the core of this is a fairly average propulsion of hammering thrash that doesn't stand out from prior efforts. The guitars manage to maintain a strident velocity through most of the songs, like "Alienation", "Pseudohalluzation" and "The Cave (Paramnesia)", but the actual riffs themselves are fairly common for the Holy Moses catalog. Thankfully the 'whole package' here works out in the band's favor. Henning Basse of Metalium loans some backing vocals to the track "Schizophrenia", lending it a pretty epic power/thrash feel and nicely grinding against Sabina's blunt and rasped delivery. "Angels in War" has a rousing backing vocal section and a guest solo lick from Obituary's Trevor Peres. "The Cave (Paramnesia)" has some brutal backing vocals courtesy of Schmier, and the closing ambient sequence is quite wonderful, serving to wrap up the dystopian package hinted at by the mecha-Sabina cover art against the wasted urban backdrop.
I only wish that Classen's vocals and the guitars were a little better throughout. Both will be familiar to anyone who has experienced the band's catalog, but they just don't sound all that thrilled to be here among this decaying landscape of ideas. They're not exactly boring, but if you took them out of their environment they'd feel like a pretty throwaway collection of compositions that don't in any way distinguish themselves from the crowd. The tone is a bit crisp, which feels digitized in the wrong direction against the leads, intros and vocals, and thus the production does come across a little dry. It's a shame, because I truly buy the idea of a cyberpunk-style thrash record, and other bands that have explored dark futurism (like Paradox) have done quite well with it. In the end, Agony of Death is another decent Holy Moses effort, but no better or worse than the last, and void of its clever seasonings it would fall well behind the rest of their 21st century offerings.
Verdict: Win [7/10] (separation of things that belong together)
http://www.holymoses.net/index.php#home
Disorder of the Order might not have been the bees' knees of the Holy Moses catalog, but after so many years of disdainful tripe like Temple of the Absurd or the underwhelming Holy Moses hardcore album No Matter Whats the Cause, it seemed like a godsend. The band was back in the full swing of vicious thrash metal, and even with a new lineup they were primed to shine once more. Here on the followup, Strength Power Will Passion, long time writer and guitarist Andy Classen had finally left the picture for real to focus on his engineering and production. The band had left Century Media and joined Armageddon, who were also releasing a few albums by younger thrash bands. For lack of a better idea, they decided to place Sabina Classen's image on the cover pentagram, sporting a Glen Benton inverted cross forehead brand...
Thankfully, the music is consistent with the feral energy of the previous album's faster tracks, with hints at the 80s greatness of Finished With the Dogs. Songs like "Angel Cry", "I Will" and "Rebirth" all spurt along with a similar crispness to the streams of muted, thrashing menace, but the mix of gang shouts and Sabina's gruesome slather combine for an acceptable experience in headbanging chaos. There are also a few more atmospheric tunes like "Symbol of Spirit" with its numbing melodies, "End of Time" with its powerful, clinical bridge riffing, or "Sacred Crystals" with walls of force that recall late 90s Death. If you can wade past the 10-15 minutes of silence after "Say Goodbye", they also do a cover of Henry Valentino's German hit "Im Wagen Vor Mir" with Tom Angelripper contributing some spit.
Strength Power Will Passion has a fairly clean vibe to it, but it thankfully doesn't cut into the aggression or offset Sabina's delirious venom. Guitarist Michael Hankel (formerly of Erosion) has stepped into his role as songwriter with style, but most of the compositions remain consistent with Andy Classen's work in the past. I can't say that I'd listen to this record over Disorder of the Order, The New Machine of Liechtenstein, and certainly not Finished With the Dogs, but I've never had any real complaint about it. It's volatile and harsh enough to satisfy what I loved so much about their finer days, it just lacks the catchiness in its individual tracking.
Verdict: Win [7/10] (spoiled, scrubbed and scoured)
http://www.holymoses.de
The Master of Disaster EP displayed a returned, reinvigorated Holy Moses with a fresh line-up, but the true test would come with the first planned full-length, Disorder of the Order, which came out the following year, once more through Century Media. Once again we've got a heroine on the cover, fighting demons in a cheesy comic book motif, but at least this album image doesn't seem as self-aggrandizing as the following two. What's better, this is easily the most exciting Holy Moses material during the 'second wind' of their career (i.e. the 21st century), and it brings back a lot of the crisp, barbaric riffing of their classic Finished with the Dogs, flavored with some curious mid-paced tracks that mix rock and thrash to interesting effects.
If you were keen on Master of Disaster, then this is a direct continuation of that sound, but with better overall writing. The highlights are clearly the faster paced pieces like the impressive and filthy blitz of "We Are At War" and "Break the Evil", or the more measured, tempo shifting "Hell On Earth". All of these feature tight riffs and reckless speed circa "Current of Death", and even if they don't quite match that level of sporadic memory punching, they're far better than almost anything the band had released since the 80s. Then there are the more unusual tracks, like the slow-moving groove/thrash of the title track, with gang shouts and some interesting spikes of bouncing guitar melody that tie them together; "Deeper" with its subtle synthesizer atmosphere and roiling, chugging sequences carried along at a march-like pace; or "1000" which features crashing melodic walls of guitar and rock chords. Inevitably, there are some that fall between these two poles, in particular "I Bleed" which features some of Sabina's best vocals on the album.
Of course, they're not all diamonds, and my attention seems to always dive near the end of the album. Not that the final four tracks are necessarily bad, but they're not as exciting, and might have been clipped to preserve the dignity and roundedness of the rest. The tribute to the Big Three in "Blood Bond" is quite a nice tough, but it also seems a little haughty to include this band in the 'Holy Kreator of Destructive Sodomy'. I mean, where's Tankard? And while I truly love Finished with the Dogs, more so than anything Sodom ever released, I severely doubt that this band ever had the same impact as those others. But regardless, this track isn't bad and the lyrics aren't at all what I had feared (most of the lyrics are decent). Sabina turns in a fine performance throughout, mixing her early death grunts and rasped adaptations, and the band blazes along as if they were old hands at this style. Sadly, this is the last album Andy Classen would be involved in (songwriting and some guitars), but at the very least he left his alma mater with a bang.
Verdict: Win [7.5/10] (recoil the reflexes)
http://www.holymoses.net/
With Sabina Classen off promoting the absurdly weak Temple of the Absurd and Andy Classen having transformed Holy Moses into some sort of hardcore/death metal hybrid, it was pretty clear that the natives were restless by the mid-90s. So when the German thrash staple took a dirt nap for the foreseeable future, it was an understandable and welcome maneuver. But it wouldn't last forever. Come the 21st century, after a few health concerns for Sabina that included accidents on both the live stage and a motorcycle, Temple of the Absurd called it quits, the Classens reunited to write some new material for their delinquent musical entity, and were picked up by the now massive Century Media label for the Master of Disaster EP and Disorder of the Order full-length.
This is a sort of 'no hard feelings' reunion that does warm the heart and reeks of maturity. But by this time, Andy Classen had also grown as a recording engineer and producer, so he would not be committing full-time to Holy Moses, and remained on only for songwriting and backing vocals. So Holy Moses got an entirely new backing band: Jörn Schubert, Franky Brotz, Jochen Fünders, and Julien Schmidt, all of whom were kicking around in lesser known German acts, but prove that together they know how to tear out some god damned thrash. Master of Disaster is not a bold new direction for the band, but a return to their late 80s thrashing with a glossy mix and some slight modernization. It's also the strongest release the band had issued since 1991's The New Machine of Liechtenstein, with a vicious appeal and well structured riffing that seemed to mirror the newfound inspiration of the more prominent German thrashers Destruction, Sodom and Kreator, all of which had cast their lot forcefully back into the purebred thrash pageant by 2001.
All of the five tracks here are well managed, but I feel like it functions on the strength of two in particular. "The Hand of Death" is simply my favorite track the band recorded since "Current of Death", which is amusing since they are similar in thrust and aggression, but Sabina was using a more rasped vocal style here, and instead of a soaring clean chorus, the band uses glinting and sad guitar melodies which really drive the verse rhythms home. "Feel the Pain" is also quite excellent, mid-paced battering with semi-tech, clinical riffs and thrifty micro-leads that sail along with the verse vocals. The remaining tunes are also explosive, especially "Taste My Blood" which is sheer excess and violence, but I didn't find their construction quite so memorable. The title cut is worthwhile, but "Down On Your Knees" is probably the least impressive, using a lot of bounce riffs and harmonics to lesser effect.
The EP is definitely not perfect, but it also bears the feel of a phoenix having sorted out its affairs and come back from the ashes of demise. As a renewed statement of intent, it hearkens back to what made the band great by the later 80s, and it appears the Classens had shaken the Seattle and hardcore trends out of their respective systems. I can't say I'm fond of the 'female icon' cover art the band would start to use here, which supposedly represents Sabina herself and comes off as both cheesy and egotistical, a motif which had been absent in their past albums... But hell every Gothic fairycore band was using their frontwoman as a pin-up, so why not an actual metal singer like Sabina?
Verdict: Win [7.25/10] (crack the liar's eyes)
http://www.holymoses.net/
The first time I was exposed to this album, I pondered what had happened to Holy Moses that they had decided to become Sick of It All. Then, when I first heard its battering content, I wondered when Sabina Classen had begun taking testosterone treatments. I mean, the woman always stood among the most brutal of thrash front persons, but this was manlier than fuck. Then it dawned on me that this was not Sabina Classen at all, but Andy Classen performing the vocals, and I did despair. While Sabina was off distracted by her other band Temple of the Absurd, with a number of members of Warpath, Andy was keeping the home fires lit by releasing something that he probably should have...well, at least not under the name of Holy Moses.
Certainly, there are traces of albums like Finished With the Dogs or World Chaos here, but the band's thrashing core has been elasticated into the propulsion of hardcore and grind music. Basically, if you could temper the band's prior output with some Sick of It All and Napalm Death, then the result would sound a whole hell of a lot like No Matter What's the Cause. It's extremely pissed sounding, so it approaches this evolution with some knowledge of what it needs to accomplish, and yet I found myself pretty sick of it within 3-4 tracks. "Step Ahead", "Denial" and "No Solution" all feature Andy's blitz-like, dense guitar tones in a fast, thrashing formula, and Sven Herwig simply gets ballistic with the drums, and Danny Lilker of Nuclear Assault, S.O.D. and so forth guests on the bass; but the character of the band's better years is completely absent, and it probably falls outside the interest range of the standard thrasher who was into their material.
Now, if you always shunned Holy Moses' catalog for being 'not heavy enough' (in other words, you didn't listen to it because it wasn't death metal or grind), then perhaps you could derive some satisfaction from this steady onslaught. Most of the tracks are over in 2 minutes or less, and though he's more monotonous, this Classen's vocals aren't that bad, just a deeper, blunt alternative to his ex-wife. Personally, I find it to be the weakest they've ever released under any formation, and it's not something I'd listen to even if I were a massive fan of what it was trying to pull off. But it was a sour note to leave off on, since it represented 'curtain's for the bands for the next seven years, until an Andy-less, Sabina-fronted Holy Moses would return for the Master of Disaster EP in 2001.
Verdict: Indifference [5/10] (choke on your disrespect)
http://www.holymoses.net/
We had managed to be spared for six full-length albums before the inevitable 'fan package' compilation arrived, but when it did, it took the form of an expanded release of the band's 1991 Too Drunk to Fuck cover single. This is little more than the re-release of the band's cover songs, with a 5-track compilation, a few cover songs and some rehearsal tracks, and in short, it's just a convenient way to shovel some extra money upon Holy Moses, or their label at the time. Like many such collections, there has since been a re-issue of this with even more content, namely some early live recordings from 1982-84 that had been released as a rare demo. I'd advise not wasting your time at all with the Too Drunk to Fuck package, but if you're going to, then you'd might as well grab that 2006 for the minimal, added value.
The compilation begins with the covers of "Too Drunk to Fuck" (Dead Kennedys) and "Fight For Your Right To Party" (Beastie Boys), both of which the fan will already own with the CD of World Chaos (1990). I rather like their Dead Kennedys cover, but it hasn't suddenly sprouted wings here and flown away to another level of appreciation. After this, there's a very short compilation of previously released material: "Theotoloy" and "Distress of Death" (Terminal Terror, 1991); "Clash My Soul", "Welcome to the Real World" and the cover of D.R.I.'s "Five Year Plan" (Reborn Dogs, 1992), which had just been released a year prior! What a fucking waste this is. Then we actually arrive at the few tracks that the Holy Moses fan might actually have shelled out their money for. Rehearsal renditions of "Finished with the Dogs", "World Chaos" and a song I hadn't heard called "Waste or Try". Neither of the studio tracks sounds any better in this situation, and the unreleased piece is average.
Finally, there's a cover of "Black Metal" with Cronos and members of the Holy Moses-related thrash band Warpath involved. It's not the best remake of the song I've heard, and I don't like the gang vocals, but it is perhaps the one thing on this stinking heap that is actually worth hearing. But honestly, maybe you could find it at YouTube or somewhere else. Too Drunk to Fuck is just another asinine grab at the fan's wallet, no matter who was involved. Consider that Holy Moses had about a half dozen demos in the early 80s. Would we not have preferred a compilation of these? That might at least been worth shelling a few dollars for. This, this is just pitiful, and the Venom cover does not make up for any financial loss.
Verdict: Epic Fail [2/10]
http://www.holymoses.net/index.php#home
I'd be lying if I said that the title of Holy Moses' sixth full-length album, Reborn Dogs, was not a cause for excitement. Obviously, this is because I thought the band would be returning to the eminent propulsion and savagery that fueled their 1987 masterpiece, Finished With the Dogs. To an extent, that is precisely the idea that the German band seem to be toying with. This is some fairly aggressive thrash metal, with Sabina Classen's continued brutality up front, but the issue I took with Reborn Dogs is that for all the authenticity and good intentions, the material written here just falls short of my expectations. It's not as dark and gloomy as the previous album Terminal Terror, and a step down in many ways.
Really, it comes down to the riffs, which on Reborn Dogs consist of a slew of entirely generic fare that might have been more effective in the middle of the preceding decade. They're pissed off enough, especially with Classen performing in her death/thrash tone, but until you get pretty deep in the track list, they all spin into one ear and spurt right out the other. The thick bass and the punchy tone are just not enough to salvage tracks like "Decapitated Mind", "Welcome to the Real World", nor even the hammering juggernaut plainly labeled "Fuck You", which is the best song on the first half of the album, despite the predictable and forgettable chorus. After a spell, the guitars begin to pick up slightly in quality, namely on the driving cover of D.R.I.'s "Five Year Plan" or the closer, "Dancing With the Dead", with its doomed intro, but I wouldn't select either if I were picking through the band's career heights.
It's a shame, because everything else here is in place for the band to have another hit on their hands, except the inspiring music. I'll give Holy Moses some credit: while many other artists were exploring far and wide by 1992, this band was remaining straight on thrash. They had already had some minute experimentation, of course, but largely in the breadth and tone of what they were writing. Reborn Dogs, in title, might just have been a statement of the band's commitment to remaining honest to the genre that birthed them, but aside from the base level ability to get the head banging, and one of the more punishing emissions of energy the band has to this date, the bland notation accounts for it being the least interesting album since their debut.
Verdict: Indifference [6.75/10] (my world I returned to me)
http://www.holymoses.net/
I've got to give the Classens credit for Terminal Terror: where it lacks in the absolute ferocity of their legendary Finished with the Dogs, it at least represents the same nihilistic outlook, the same vicious end-times tone. I had been a little worried by their prior effort World Chaos, which had not been a bad album, but seemed to exhibit some turns towards clownish bravado through the use of the cover tunes there and the general polished punk atmosphere to the production. Terminal Terror is far more dour and apocalyptic, and even though the majority of the tracks suffer from some less than inspiring riffs, there are a number that simply kicked my ass in, and Sabina Classen gives what must be her most 'death metal' vocal performance, sounding like an estrogen charged John Tardy or Chuck Schuldiner, only a mere exaggeration of the slurry of savagery she previously brought to fore.
There are a number of explosions here, namely "Nothing for my mum" with its blistering feel of Destruction w/death metal vocals, and "Pool of Blood" which I must admit is probably the band's best individual song outside of Finished with the Dogs: a haunting string section morphs into clinical, monstrous thrashing that leaves naught but carnage in its wake, with a feel not unlike something Vio-Lence had written for their sophomore Oppressing the Masses, Sabina just letting everyone 'have it' like an undead general out of hell, seeking revenge. "Malicious Race" and the speedy "Tradition of Fatality" are also strong, but then there are tracks that serve to counterbalance these with pretty mundane riffing, like the doomy "Distress and Death" and the steady, tank treads of "Two Sides Terror". The title track itself is caught somewhere in the middle, though I should point out that in all cases, Sabina does a fine job fronting the mayhem.
Ultimately, Terminal Terror is another of the band's good albums, worth hearing if you enjoyed Finished with the Dogs or The New Machine of Liechtenstein, serving as a midpoint between the frothing frenzy of the former and the taut, depressive control of the latter. It's a dark vibe here throughout, even a song with 'mum' in its title is stark and serious, and this is certainly a Holy Moses I prefer to the fleeting foibles that were hinted at on its direct predecessor. 2-3 of the songs here would easily belong in a highlight compilation of the band's career, but despite the appropriately brutal presence of Sabina on the rest, they trail well behind.
Verdict: Win [7.25/10] (suffer the ruined time)
http://www.holymoses.net/
The opening charge of the title track really had me excited for World Chaos, because it showed more energy than anything off the prior record The New Machine of Liechtenstein and marked a possible return to the flurried anger and energy that I so loved on the band's masterwork Finished With the Dogs. Unfortunately, that's not really how the rest of this album pans out, for a large chunk of the track list seems to revolve around 'fun' thrash, with heavy punk influence, almost if the band were transforming into a German equivalent to D.R.I. There are still some real blazers here, but in all I felt like this were some sort of 'party' album, and while there are several things to admire about this, it's not the return to insanity I was hoping.
"World Chaos" is just a straight attack, with Sabina's uncouth growling, and it's one of the better songs here, but ultimately lacks the catchy force of a "Current of Death". A few of the other, noteworthy hammerings include "Education", "Summer Kills" and "Jungle of Lies", but most of the record seems to devolve into some standard, mosh pit paced tracks like "Diabolic Plot", similar to Sacred Reich and Hallows Eve, or "Deutschland (Remember the Past)" which reminds me of D.R.I. in their pure thrash phase). There are some naturally punky or corny pieces like "Blood Sucker" and their tongue in cheek "Guns N'Moses" (note the familiar riff in the latter), and then the 'fun factor' is thrown overboard with the band's covers of "Too Drunk to Fuck" and the CD bonus "(You Gotta) Fight For Your Right (To Party)". The Dead Kennedys cover is actually quite good, one of the better German thrash covers out there at this time, but the Beastie Boys tune leaves a lot to be desired in the hands of the Classens.
I will say this: World Chaos sounds fairly amazing, with a punchier tone than its predecessors that recalls a lot of crossover/thrash ala D.R.I. Thrash Zone or the Crumbsuckers. It's a comparable mix to Finished with the Dogs, only cleaner, but not so polished to strangle some of the band's natural energies. It's the first Holy Moses album where I found myself not liking the cover art, in particular the logo/title placement, but I suppose its topical enough for the lyrical material on the more serious songs. Andy Classen really knew how to throw an album together, I only wish the steady improvement in production values didn't seem to come at the expense of the gradual downward spiral of the band's musical content that would persist for years.
Verdict: Win [7/10] (don't believe what you see)
http://www.holymoses.net/
I'm not sure where the bus on its cover is going from, but I know where it's come from: rehab. Yes, the oddly titled The New Machine of Liechtenstein sounds like Holy Moses were suffering a hangover after the previous, astounding effort Finished with the Dogs, and this is perhaps closer to the sober tones of the debut Queen of Siam, with some pretty simple thrashing through the majority of the track list and a clean, processed sound to the guitars. However, where the debut had no real songs of worth, The New Machine of Liechtenstein is at least written well enough that it's engaging and dynamic for the majority, and thus I'd place it as a second (but fairly distant second) to the band's masterwork of two years prior.
There is no killer app here, no head splitting track like a "Current of Death" anywhere to be found, and one can certainly feel the loss, but the musicality is still in check, evident from the opener "Near Dark" with its great leads and solid riffing patterns. Sabina Classen still sounds like a blood frothing valkyrie with her wings clipped, but more subdued, as if her youthful, violent frenzy had been leeched from her in the intermittent years. Andy Classen and Uli Kusch carry the album with precision, but the guitar tone feels too boxy and over produced, more like late 80s Anthrax than Holy Moses' wild German peers. Tracks like "Defcon II", "The Brood" and "Strange Deception" plod along with reasonable force, but the album almost without exception improves whenever the band diverts to something more frenetic, like the surgical melodic dementia of "Panic" or the speedy licks of "State: Catatonic". "SSP" opens with a nice, muted blitz, but the riff patterns are somewhat lacking.
If you've got the 2005 reissue then you'll hear a few live renditions of "SSP" and "Lost in the Maze" which are in my opinion better than the studio versions. Hell, "Lost in the Maze" live even sounds like a female-fronted Pestilence, with Sabina using van Drunen styled, gorged throat guttural vocals. Pretty cool, but the studio track seems deflated somehow. The New Machine of Liechtenstein is a decent thrash effort, make no mistake about it, with some smart writing and a nice thread of man vs. machine in the lyrics, but the human catapult that was Sabina Classen circa 1987 is just not put to good enough use, and the songs are in general more plodding and slower paced, lacking that vital, violent burst which comprised one of the greatest German thrash albums of them all. They created a tall shadow to stand in, and stand in it they would, for the rest of their career, but at least there is something comforting and solid about this corner of the dark.
Verdict: Win [7.5/10] (he watched it all from the distance)
http://www.holymoses.net/
