Review Summary: Tired but honest majesty.
Maybe I am wrong, but it feels to me that Holy Moses is… not even underappreciated. The band is just not included in the discourse. Whenever people talk about Teutonic thrash, they always mean Kreator, Sodom, Destruction, Tankard, and maybe a couple more adjacent bands, that’s it. But Holy Moses shouldn’t just be mentioned in the same breath with these bands. It deserves special consideration. To me, they go toe-to-toe with Kreator and overtake all the rest of Teutonic classics easily. None of them have such a varied, ferocious, and unique vocalist as Sabina Classen, while her ex-husband Andy Classen is a remarkable songwriter on his own merit and the band managed to preserve that level of quality after Andy left in 2005.
The band’s ability to maintain its established quality standards in its modern output at least partially related to the fact that for each new record “Holy Moses” were always able to use the album that preceded it as a sort of steppingstone not just to continue moving, but to bounce off it and take the band’s sound in a slightly different direction. Extremely fierce and intense “Disorder of the Order” felt like an over-compensation for the lackluster “No Matter What’s the Cause” which didn’t even involve Sabina (please at least listen to “We are at War”). In contrast, “Strength, Power, Will, Passion” represented a more calculated and refined assault, while “Agony of Death” focused on bouncy riffs and ambient experimentation. For “Redefined Mayhem” the pendulum swung once again, and that album featured an intentionally dry and focused sound with no extra embellishments.
One significant issue for me is that “Invisible Queen” marks the first time when the band was unable to move their sound forward or at least sideways for the new album, just continuing exactly where “Redefined Mayhem” left. However, this ascetic, no-nonsense approach worked better for that album, making songs like “Triggered” sound angry and menacing, while the material on display here does not really benefit from the sound that dates back to 2014.
This results in an album that, while still solid, is probably the least immediate of the band’s post-reunion works. One might even dismiss it as unremarkable on the first listen, but the album does open up if you give it more than one chance and keep your ear primed for details. Yes, to really enjoy “Invisible Queen” it is recommended to pay attention to the nuances. If you look at an album as a whole, it is a collection of classic thrash songs with all the usual elements, but most of the songs contain some quirky or unusual parts which may not reveal themselves at first. One clear example is “Order Out of Chaos” with its strong Voivodian vibes (I feel like Holy Moses is the only old-school thrash band that dared to venture down the road that Voivod paved, at least occasionally), or “Cult of the Machine” with its downright evil “Kill them, kill them, kill them – find the traitors!” refrain. Even the weaker songs have some interesting variety factors. It may be Sabina’s vocal acrobatics as she moves beyond her standard banshee screech and along the whole spectrum from deeper growls to semi-clean, half-spoken vocals. Or it could be a hard-hitting breakdown closer to the end of the song or an interesting drumming pattern to kick things off. The drum parts are significantly more interesting than usual throughout the album, in contrast to the band’s previous albums which sometimes suffered from Thrash Metal’s usual bane of monotonous metronome-like drumming.
But don’t worry, there’s still sheer thrashing joy to be found if you are not in the mood for delving into details. I would say that the first four songs are the strongest of the bunch and the easiest to enjoy at face value. One other thing worth mentioning is that the guitar soloing is consistently exceptional even in the weaker songs. The solo parts are great and varied, tailored for every individual song, they can range from more melodic examples, sometimes even with jazzier feel to pure high-speed headbanging fun, like the blistering “Order Out of Chaos” solo. However, as is typical for a lot of modern thrash metal albums, “Invisible Queen” is rather front-loaded. It’s not that the songs that follow the excellent, self-affirming title track (the version from the second disc with Ingo Bajonczak on vocals also slaps!) are inferior, but rather the listener gets accustomed to the album’s sound which leads to diminishing impact as the album progresses. There are still some great parts, such as that explosively fast section in “Too Far Gone,” but its also one of the unfortunate symptoms: often you have to wait until the latter half of a song for something really cool to start.
And then, there’s the second disc, which is also worth mentioning, although I deliberately focused on reviewing the main album. Once you get there, you’ll find the same twelve songs, but each performed by a different guest singer. These are mostly lads and ladies from local German metal bands, but there are also some big names, such as Bobby Elsworth from Overkill and Jens Kidman from Meshuggah. Oh, and two out of four most famous Teutonic Thrash singers also make an appearance, namely Tom Angelripper from Sodom and Gerre from Tankard. This is a cool idea, and I think the songs arrangements were also adjusted slightly to suit each guest singer better. Apart from the already mentioned title track rendition with Ingo Bajonczak, my second personal favorite is “Alternative Reality” sung by Angelripper. Which is a big surprise, because normally I can barely tolerate Tom’s voice and delivery, although that is, of course, only my personal, highly subjective menstruations. Anyway, I feel like everyone will pick a couple of favorites from the second disc, and they’ll be different for each listener.
“Invisible Queen” is hardly the strongest Holy Moses album, but do not underestimate its honesty. It was announced as the final LP before the band’s retirement, but Sabina and the guys are not milking that cow. There are only a few possible references to the fact of retirement in the title track and one other song, but it’s not like “Holy Moses” are making a big deal out of their farewell. We are retiring, so here’s one more solid batch of thrash metal and some concert throughout 2023 to say goodbye. This is what we are, this is what we did, this is how we want to go out. No endless and fake “final” tours, no sappy lyrics, no attempts to squeeze a few more bucks from your fanbase. Just one final bow from the Banshee Queen.
