Reviews list 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.

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

I initially struggled with this album. I think the main reason for that is the production. I don't know whether it's just my copy, but the sound is muddy and lacks the clarity that this album could really have done with. But I pushed on, as the music seemed decent. Well, Mind Wars has grown on me to the point where the production issues don't bother me too much. This is thrash / speed metal from LA, and these guys can certainly play. Every track contains ripping riffs and memorable song writing and there's a level of excitement and intensity throughout.

One of the reviewers below mentioned Iron Maiden, which may sound strange when we're discussing a rather up-tempo thrash album. But I can hear some galloping Maiden riffs in Holy Terror's music, even if they are played at twice the speed (check out The Immoral Wasteland for pure Maiden). I can also hear Sabbat (the thrash metal band, not the Japanese black metal outfit) on a couple of tracks, but then they released their albums around the same time as this, so can hardly be considered an influence. Thankfully, the vocalist for Holy Terror doesn't sound all that much like the massively overrated Walkyier from Sabbat. In fact, Holy Terror's Aaron Redbird is quite an amazing vocalist and his hardcore like rambling and high-pitched melodies take these already solid shred fests to great heights. Highlight tracks for me are Judas Reward, Debt of Pain and No Resurrection but this is a consistent album that I'm glad I checked out.

Holy Terror were a short-lived LA thrash band that formed in 1985 and left a couple of great albums behind them before splitting in '89. Mind Wars was the second of these albums and is as much speed metal as it is thrash. As most people tend to comment, the production is absolute shit and the sound is muddied as a consequence. However, the poor production doesn't kill what is a ripping record nonetheless. The tempo is high, the riffs are turbo-charged and the solos shred like hell. The songs arguably share more DNA with Iron Maiden than Metallica, particularly 80's vintage Maiden, albeit much faster - check out the galloping bass lines of The Immoral Wasteland or the guitar sound of Fool's Gold for classic Maidenisms. Singer Keith Deen has got a decent snarl, but his high notes aren't always great and sometimes sound like he's straining to maintain, but his aggressive, almost punk style is very much his own, particularly excelling on the hardcore-influenced Do Unto Others. If you're up for some full-throttle, thrashing speed metal than you could do much worse than wrapping your ears round this underrated beauty.