Review by Rexorcist for Holy Terror - Mind Wars (1988)

Even though Holy Terror remains an obscure band throughout most musical and even metal-based communities, the thrashers go crazy over their second and final album, and with excellent reason.  There are a few noteworthy changes between the debut and the sophomore.  First: the production is better.  I find that a bit interesting, considering the lo-fi nature of the previous album's production aged well.  However, it's not QUITE perfect, so it loses the acidic charm of lo-fi metal.  Second: the album is much faster.  The energy of the previous album was easily a saving grace considering that the songwriting didn't stand out, so this excess in energy helps this second piece to reach Kreator levels of energy.  Thirdly, the songwriting is a bit more unpredictable, surprising and sometimes progressive or a little neoclassical.  It seems that the group went through a major stylistic re-evaluation in order to make this album, and it worked out beautifully.  The Immortal Wasteland has a more cinematic and storytelling presence to it than anything that came before, a bit like a power metal song or something by Manilla Road.  In fact, that one song alone can symbolize how far they came since their enjoyable yet generic debut, but we get a three-part song immediately afterwards, almost a la Pink Floyd.  The title track is an absolute pace-changer than challenges out idea of proper songwriting while boasting about the jam-packed nature of the intro while the last 2.5 minutes of manage an actual song that has some amazing riffs, but needs the vocalist's singing to raise the volume a bit.  As well, it finally achieves a little sameyness by the end, which is unfortunate considering how surprising the album was.

So other than these three little gripes, this album would be flawless.  This is one of the most fun, jamming and heavy thrash albums of the 80's, and I'll definitely check it out a second time.

97