World Chaos

"World Chaos": the anti-thesis to "The New Machine..."? Definitely. Holy Moses were in search of their fury of the pre-WEA times. After being dropped by the industrial monster, a reset was necessary. The terrifying artwork illustrated that the ambassadors of noise did not want to be anybody's darling anymore. Anyway, the band did not stand at the threshold of a new era. Sabina and her team were just forced to make a second start.

The opening title track seemed to give the starting signal for another unrelenting attack. A precise riff, high velocity and a chorus with some punk vibes shaped this hostile piece that picked up the threads of their second album again. Only the barking of a pack of rabid dogs was missing. A promising start, but unfortunately the best song of the album at the same time. Hateful fury is always a good companion for a formation like Holy Moses, but it cannot fully replace coherent, stirring compositions. The songs of "The New Machine..." had been less hostile, but they had offered a lot of charisma. By contrast, tunes like the oh so funny "Guns n' Moses" lacked of great ideas. Aggravating this situation, the boundless anger of "...the Dogs" remained unaffected. "World Chaos" could not keep up with their masterpiece, neither in terms of vehemence nor in terms of quality. Some nonsensical lyrics did not help to make things much better. "After school they take the gun / No emotions since Vietnam", taken from "Permission to Fire" or "There is no other fucking nation / With such a horror decoration" from "Deutschland" revealed a very crude understanding of the American present and the German past. However, to think in black and white without any shades of grey makes your world easy.

No doubt, you can listen to the album and it will not spoil your mood. It stands on its own feet and does not offer throwaway tracks, although the Dead Kennedys cover does not really make sense. Yet the compositional brilliance of its two predecessors is missing. With the exception of the opener, no song deserves a closer look. The not overly primitive, but pretty simple tunes come and go without leaving a lasting impression. It would be too hard to say that the commercial disaster of "The New Machine..." was supplemented by a creative flop. Yet it was a fact that "World Chaos" marked a surprisingly average work with a certain number of meandering solos and slightly vapid riffs every now and then ("Blood Sucker").

Finally, the production. It is surely polite to describe the mix of an album, but honestly, I don't know what to say about the technical implementation of the eleven songs. The production fails to offer special characteristics, for better or for worse. It is authentic, maybe more authentic than that of "The New Machine...", and that's it. Holy Moses at the edge of a new era? It rather seemed that the surprisingly unchanged line-up wanted to take a step back into the past. Too bad that nobody is able to recreate the magic of a previous masterpiece at the push of a button.

The opening charge of the title track really had me excited for World Chaos, because it showed more energy than anything off the prior record The New Machine of Liechtenstein and marked a possible return to the flurried anger and energy that I so loved on the band's masterwork Finished With the Dogs. Unfortunately, that's not really how the rest of this album pans out, for a large chunk of the track list seems to revolve around 'fun' thrash, with heavy punk influence, almost if the band were transforming into a German equivalent to D.R.I. There are still some real blazers here, but in all I felt like this were some sort of 'party' album, and while there are several things to admire about this, it's not the return to insanity I was hoping.

"World Chaos" is just a straight attack, with Sabina's uncouth growling, and it's one of the better songs here, but ultimately lacks the catchy force of a "Current of Death". A few of the other, noteworthy hammerings include "Education", "Summer Kills" and "Jungle of Lies", but most of the record seems to devolve into some standard, mosh pit paced tracks like "Diabolic Plot", similar to Sacred Reich and Hallows Eve, or "Deutschland (Remember the Past)" which reminds me of D.R.I. in their pure thrash phase). There are some naturally punky or corny pieces like "Blood Sucker" and their tongue in cheek "Guns N'Moses" (note the familiar riff in the latter), and then the 'fun factor' is thrown overboard with the band's covers of "Too Drunk to Fuck" and the CD bonus "(You Gotta) Fight For Your Right (To Party)". The Dead Kennedys cover is actually quite good, one of the better German thrash covers out there at this time, but the Beastie Boys tune leaves a lot to be desired in the hands of the Classens.

I will say this: World Chaos sounds fairly amazing, with a punchier tone than its predecessors that recalls a lot of crossover/thrash ala D.R.I. Thrash Zone or the Crumbsuckers. It's a comparable mix to Finished with the Dogs, only cleaner, but not so polished to strangle some of the band's natural energies. It's the first Holy Moses album where I found myself not liking the cover art, in particular the logo/title placement, but I suppose its topical enough for the lyrical material on the more serious songs. Andy Classen really knew how to throw an album together, I only wish the steady improvement in production values didn't seem to come at the expense of the gradual downward spiral of the band's musical content that would persist for years.

-autothrall
http://www.fromthedustreturned.com

Of course it's hard to equal an album as good as the brilliant 'The New Machine Of Liechtenstein'. Holy Moses still yet has to do that nowadays and that means that also 'World Chaos' doesn't quite match up it's near perfect predecessor. Just the fact that it was so much worse was a bit of a surprise to me. And a rather unpleasant one, as you can probably understand.

And it all starts out so well! 'World Chaos' opens with the title track of the album, which is easily one of the best tracks in Holy Moses' history. The opening riff is monumental, brutal and full blown Andy Classen. That means it's fast, precise and incredibly heavy. Not only is that opening riff killer (that's a problem with the rest of the album, but I'll come to that later in the review), also the rest of the song kicks ass so hard, that you won't be able to sit for the couple of days following the one on which you heard the song. Sabina Classen is obviously pissed off and that shows in the songs. Her vocals are raw and angry and Andy's backings really enforce that. Without this track, the album would easily have gotten 5 points less.

What is wrong with this album then? Well, first of all, there's TWO covers on the album. Two songs of which the originals aren't all that good anyway; 'Too Drunk To Fuck' by the Dead Kennedies and 'Fight For Your Right' by the Beastie Boys. The first turned out to be a live classic for Holy Moses (just like 'Fuck You' for OverKill, not rightfully so) and is only slightly better than the original and the latter probably is even worse than the original. I didn't even know that was possible.

In addition, most of the songs seem to be based around their choruses too much. That is something I find quite disturbing anyway, but Holy Moses has never really been a "chorus band", so to speak, and the choruses on this album are in their majority extremely weak. That means that most tracks really have their moments, but are completely ruined by either their chorus or a part that is meant to be really catchy, but rather sounds really cheesy. The adventurous structures of 'The New Machine Of Liechtenstein' have completely vanished in favor of predictable, sometimes boring songs with just a handful of cool riffs.

That doesn't mean that the entire album just sucks. As I've said before, the title track is one of Holy Moses' best songs and 'Diabolic Plot' really has some very good moments (except for, exactly, its chorus) and the last three songs before the closing 'Fight For Your Right' are all only a little short of being good.

But opposing that, there's a track like 'Guns 'n' Moses', which is just plain silly, as the title probably already suggests. It's probably just a joke, with the main riff being almost completely borrowed from Guns 'n' Roses' 'Paradise City', but I'd rather hear a serious song that is really good. 'Education' starts out promising, grinding, slow, but turns into a stupid song shortly after. It's really a pity, there are really some good moments on this album. Just not enough of them and the fact that they are just moments already tells they are surrounded by moments that are less good.

My guess is as follows: 'World Chaos' was written in the middle of the Gulf War and I kind of have the idea that the band focused on the "protest" part of the record instead of focusing on writing good songs. I just have the idea that that wasn't necessary, because on the two albums before 'World Chaos', the band took a couple of statements without losing sight of the great music.

'World Chaos' is far from being Holy Moses' finest hour. The punky attitude is taken a little too far on this album. Of course, not every album can be equally good, but Uli Kusch, who left after this album, could have at least gotten a better farewell than this one. The title track alone is worth the price you pay for the album, but my guess is that you won't put on the rest of the album too often after that.