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

Mind Wars falls too heavily on the speed metal side of things to ever be eligible for me to be talking about it in excited tones of appreciation. It is not that I hate speed metal as such, more that in the grander scheme of the many sub-genres of metal, it often finds itself somewhere towards the back of the queue. This is also not to say that Mind Wars is without its merits. The guitar work here deserves commendation for sure. Whether it is the frantic riffing or the rich sounding leads, Alvord and Kilfelt (or Colfelt to give the former Agent Steel man his birth surname) give a solid acquittal of themselves. Equally, whilst far from being a virtuoso performance, Joe Mitchell’s drumming stands out on most tracks. The meddling bass of Floyd Flanary manages to make its presence known throughout the record, a characteristic that makes me recall Metal Church when pitched alongside the vocals of the late Keith Deen.

If I am honest, the vocals are my main issue with Mind Wars. Deen’s performance is very inconsistent for me, ranging from passable all the way down to “Oh my God, please make it stop!” I absolutely get the argument that the style is not only a good fit for the music, but also reminiscent of many other acts of the time. I just feel that perhaps Deen pushed his range further than it could stretch too. Sometimes he sounds nothing short of half-arsed and so I am doubly grateful of the rest of the band’s work to distract me from this at times overbearing detail. At times though there are even sloppy elements to the instrumentation, and the title track, for example, seems to suffer from this. Notwithstanding that the production of the record leaves some call for question with its heavy and suffocating atmosphere that does on occasion make proceedings sound like they were recorded behind linen.

The heart is most definitely there, even if the outcome may not always convince you of this in the moment, there is usually an upcoming positive to alleviate momentary concerns. On balance though, whilst I am entertained by this, it is hard to get too excited by it and I cannot see me returning to Mind Wars anytime soon.