Holy Moses "Terminal Terror (Τηεοτοχψ)" CD

After 'World Chaos', Holy Moses was in a position that they could almost only win. 'World Chaos' was a disappointing record and the musicians of Holy Moses have in the past proven to be very capable of writing songs as well as of playing their instruments. Therefore, the chances of 'Terminal Terror' being worse than its predecessor were minimal.
And it wasn't. 'Terminal Terror' is a very decent album. It shows Holy Moses in a slightly more doomy form than what we were used to, but that isn't by any means a negative thing. The slower parts have always been good for Holy Moses, they added a little variation to the speed frenzies displayed on most of their albums. 'Lost In The Maze' from 'The New Machine Of Liechtenstein', for instance, was such a welcome addition in a slower pace.
However, 'Terminal Terror' starts out with a really fast song. After hearing an intro of a mother and daughter arguing about the music being too loud (any parent who understands the German language will probably enjoy this), 'Nothing For My Mum' starts, one of Holy Moses' most vicious tracks to date. The tempo is high, though there is a slightly slower ending, the riffs are once again Andy Classen style and the way Sabina Classen does her vocals to this song, makes me think her anger about arguments with her own mother about the music being too loud is really coming out in the song. That makes 'Nothing For My Mum' one of the angriest Holy Moses-tracks to date. The following two tracks, 'Two Sides Terror' and 'Theotocy (Terminal Terror)', the latter of which is sung by Andy Classen, show a pattern. Apart from both being kick ass songs, they both start out slower and doomy, only to dissolve into a faster chaos later into the song. It's something which regularly returns on the album, but done a little different every time, so that it doesn't get boring.
One of the absolute highlights on the album is a song called 'The Pool Of Blood', which turned into one of my Holy Moses-favorites soon after hearing it. There's some nice twin parts in this song and the song changes time feel and mood several times. Sabina's grunts seem to be coming from deeper than before on this track and the riffs are among Andy's best of all time. Surprising is the classical violin (actually, I think it's a keyboard) intro before the track, it builds up the tension quite well and the explosion when all the other instruments enter is very effective after that.
The rest of the album is very, very decent. Not many standout tracks apart from the ones I mentioned before, but the level of the album is almost constantly quite high. With the level shooting up a little with the four tracks mentioned, especially 'Nothing For My Mum' and 'The Pool Of Blood'. And there's something else, namely the tempo, that's shooting up during closing 'Tradition Of Fatality'. Killer. Funny is the Greek word on the album cover next to the album title. Because of the song title 'Theotocy', I know that's the word they've been wanting to spell here, but it's obvious that neither of the members had any Greek classes in highschool, otherwise they would have known it should have been spelled differently. They probably have used the "Symbol" font and just spelled out the word with that font.
But apart from that slight flaw, which I consider to be quite funny, this album is a quality product that deserves to be heard. Often overlooked but worth the listen.

Sample: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...