Review Summary: A darkened and more thoughtfully constructed piece of thrash metal, Agony of Death is Holy Moses’s boldest and most ambitious record to date.
Reaching their tenth studio record in 2008 it was easy to suggest that Aachen-based thrash metal attack dogs Holy Moses will not complicate things on their newest release. By then the band already possessed a long and fruitful history with a musically mostly consistent discography a smaller but equally loyal fanbase that what other Teutonic thrash bands have, and not to mention a fair amount of respect for sticking out with their guns for so long as well as delivering such classics like “Finished with the Dogs”. Their simple but straightforward, raw, fast-paced riffing along with the raspy and unique vocals of Sabina Classen have also became recognizable and after the last two albums one would easily assume that they not going to change from the formula that they stuck with on their last two albums.
However “Agony of Death” is exactly the opposite. Introducing several new elements to spice up their musical core it creates quite a fascinating contrast to the last two albums. The two major changes that are present here are musical conceptuality and musical complexity. As you can guess from the rather impressive dystopian looking cover art, the lyrics and major themes of this record are heavily influenced by utopian science-fiction and cyberpunk, delving into such themes such as social castigation, warfare and other problems at large. But this is also present on the album’s atmosphere as well: Nearly every song on this records has futuristic synthesizer intro and outros to create a sense of dread and sometimes they make the songs overlapping to each other making the record sound more like a cohesive piece of work rather than a collection of individual tracks.
I also mentioned complexity. Let’s face it: While they always knew how to deliver all the musical tropes of thrash, Holy Moses was never a band that was lauded for the technicality in their songwriting or instrumentalization but with this album Sabina and her bandmates truly stepped up their game. Much like the recent albums by Exodus, the songs of “Agony of Death” are lengthy assaults that compile multiple sections of fast and mid-paced riffs and while they certainly have the bands signature punkish sound they also don’t shy away from more melodic touches thus they bare a much stronger similarity to the Bay Area formula than previous Holy Moses records. In the past they barley wrote a song longer than four minutes, now here’s an album that’s dominated by 5-8 minutes in length, thus making “Agony of Death” their longest record to date. 12 songs and 69 minutes are not something to can be easily filled, because it fall into two traps: Excess or boredom.
Luckily the band manages to avoid both of them by maintaining a consistent level of energy and variety in the songwriting “Imagination” opens the record on a high note with its furious and old-school mayhem and other tracks like “Schizophrenia” and “Dissociative Disorder” also boast impressive levels of aggression with speedy yet surgical riffing, constant drum fills and shredding leads. Other songs like “Alienation” or “World in Darkness” display a more mid-paced fashion with powerful hooks, dynamic marching rhythms and memorable choruses. Clocking over eight minutes the album’s longest track “Pseudohalluzination” has quite the interesting character. After the haunting and short section of ambient noises and synthesizers, the songs opens with the exact same lead guitar riff as one of their older songs “Near Dark” thus giving a short burst of nostalgia before transforming into a beast of fast paced staccato riffing and other goodies.
The album maintains its quality all the end, but the first eight songs show a much more inspired level of structuring than the ones that closes it. Songs like “The Cave” or “The Retreat” are not particularly bad they just feel less stronger and impactful than the other songs and of course these are not just the only flaws on this record. Despite trying their best the album still feels a bit too long and by the end it’s easy to feel a bit of exhaustion by the nonstop barrage of thrashing. Also the ambient intros and outros are not bad ideas but they often feel overused or overlong thus creating a strange filler-like feeling towards them despite the fact that they’re not individual tracks.
As I mentioned the performance of the band members easily makes this record the most musically accomplished work of Holy Moses. Michael Hankel and Oliver Jaath both amp up the guitar work, delivering riffs both heavy and creative and the lead guitar parts are also way better in their delivery compared to the last two records. Instead of short and rather on-the-spot shredding, they put a much stronger focus on melodic sweeping and triangle moves balancing them well enough with the angry and rough rhythms sections. Drummer Atomic Steif (who pounded the living hell out of them on “Terminal Terror”) returns and delivers another solid performance with his intense fills and punchy grooves. Sabina as always in reliable in her grunting although she feels a bit restrained and more traditional in her vocals not to mention she’s backed with a sometime rousing backing vocals. The production is alright; the sound is a bit dry but it also both modern and old-school in all the right fashion.
With “Agony of Death”, Holy Moses proved that they not just simply a musical one-trick pony that relies on the benefits of the past, and that they can release a record worthy of the 21’st century. By delivering full capacity on technicality and likeability it is a record worth listening to any fan of thrash metal, despite its few shortcomings.
