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Queen of Siam

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To a generation of young misguided hesher pups, basically anyone who started listening to heavy metal in the 90s, Arch Enemy's Angela Gossow is the ultimate female extreme metal vocalist, but those of us who are a little older and know better will always contend that the title will always belong to Holy Moses' Sabina Classen.
In the mid 80s, heavy metal, and especially thrash, was an undisputed boys club with a "no girls allowed" sign in the front door. True, there were a few female musicians operating within the metal realm like Lita Ford, Doro Pesch, Ann Boylen, Betty Weiss, Dawn Crosby and the Girschool chicks, but they were mostly dismissed as either curiosities or talentless hacks coasting on their sex appeal. Sure, things haven't changed that much in the last two and a half decades, and I'm not really sure that the fact that contemporary headbangers watching some semi hot chick fronting a band are more likely to react with boring sighs rather than eye-rolling derision or downright hostility is a real improvement, but still, the fact that this band's singer was a girl might just be the only compelling reason to claim that Holy Moses were even mildly relevant to heavy metal's history.
Holy Moses rose from the same German thrash scene that spawned bands like Kreator, Sodom, and Destruction, and despite being a strong band on their own right, the truth is that without the gimmick of having a great looking gal that sounded like a thrash gruffer at the mike they would've probably got lost in the shuffle with similar sounding bands such as Exumer, Assassin, Accuser, Iron Angel or Despair.
That isn't in itself bad, since the music in this album is pretty competent and always up to par when compared to the aforementioned bands. The only thing that really bothers me is acknowledging the fact that if it wasn't for Sabina's monster charm and sex appeal, most of us thrashers back in the day would've probably dismissed this band as painfully generic, but instead chose to support the band wholeheartedly after falling in love with this wild looking, gravel voiced bombshell while perusing this album's liner notes. Of course, subsequent albums would prove that Sabina is a genuinely talented vocalist, but one has to wonder how much of her band's career fortunes were dictated by her looks.
So ultimately, Holy Moses' relevance lies more on the fact that it was an effective vehicle for the idea that women could have their place in heavy metal rather than on its music, and there's very little doubt in my mind that they're at least a little responsible for the mid to late 90s deluge of female fronted goth and symphonic bands that ironically would eventually become another cliché.
80s thrash fans will undoubtedly enjoy this album, but I have my reservations on recommending it to a wider metal audience. Still, the inclusion of the band's Walpurgisnight demo as a bonus makes this edition an irresistible proposition for old school thrashers like me, who about twenty five years ago fell in love with this growling dynamo.

I just have to put in a word about this since there are no reviews for some reason. This album is very underrated and I almost didn't bother picking it up based on bad feedback from people, I'm glad I bought it anyways because it is a good start for a great band. I think its mainly the die hard thrash fans that dislike this because its more simplistic than later albums but being a fan of stuff like Burzum & Darkthrone that doesn't bother me yet it still has that thrash sound. I used to think Overkill was criminally underrated (and they are) but they are major rockstars compared to this band it seems... Whats up with that?? They are a fairly big band but not to the level they should be and thats simply because people have their heads up their a**. Finished with the Dogs & New machine of Liechtenstein are better albums but this is more important because it is the first and at the time there was nothing else like this around that I am aware of. If You like Holy Moses you can't go wrong with this album its a classic and will be widely recognized as a classic album by all these "experts" in the near future. just watch.