Review of the Album "Queen of Siam" the Debut Album of the German Thrash Metal Band Holy Moses

Of all the Holy Moses albums that I have reviewed or that fans may enjoy the most, "Queen of Siam" probably might be one of those albums that’s overlooked. Queen of Siam is the debut album of German thrash metal band Holy Moses released in 1986. Since I briefly discussed about their 1987 album Finished With the Dogs in my article about Sabina Classen, it is time to mention about the debut album of one of the finest thrash metal bands in existence.

Holy Moses took six years to release their debut album which is a long time considering that most band release their debut album a few years after their formation. The album stylistically has thrash metal moments but it sounds mostly progressive in nature.

The album begins in rather interesting fashion as the song Necropolis starts with mid-tempo riffing before speeding up and Sabina lets you know that Holy Moses is about to start on their quest to bring high quality thrash metal to the world! The song paints a picture of a town or village that has been ravaged by disease and the plague has struck newborn children. Then there is a song called Don’t Mess With the B****. The song is an attempt to describe a bar which has customers that seem to want to drink and smoke as they carry on a lifestyle that would be sinful in the eyes of many people. The song has a sort of riffing that lets you know on some level that the sound is a bit messy.

Road Crew is a song with very slurred speech kind of vocals and it is a song that describes the lifestyle of many heavy metal bands as they get on the road and tour as they are involved with the vice of too much drinking and partying. Walpurgisnight is a song that in terms of the riffing sounds like a more progressive song because it feels like 1980’s Fates Warning. Think of the albums Night on Brocken and The Spectre Within. The year 1986 saw the release of several famous heavy metal albums so some you might be asking how Queen of Siam compares to these albums. The production on Queen of Siam is better than what we would hear on albums at this time. Dear Little Friend has a catchy riff all throughout and it sounds like the song Walk on Fighting by the band Edguy. That riff would form the basis of that song in 1998 so Edguy might have been influenced by Holy Moses. The song is about a friendship that really flourished over the years and this friend grew up in a family filled with much harmony. Although there was much love for this friend, this friend and his brothers had to drift apart due to differences. Torches of Hire is an instrumental that ends quite a good album even for Holy Moses’ standards.

Queen of Siam may not be as good as Finished With the Dogs but it is a good progressive influenced metal CD that is not as thrash filled as other Holy Moses albums but the songwriting is respectable.