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After I got this promo, I realized I owned only two other Holy Moses albums: Disorder of the Order and Agony of Death. Still baffled by this, and I'll have to rectify that eventually. Anyway, Invisible Queen is apparently the band's final album after a career spanning over four decades.

I find Holy Moses don't sound much less other German thrash bands and it's certainly still true with this album. In fact, this is more of a death/thrash affair that straight-out thrash. For one thing, I find this is closer to U.S. East Coast thrash than to German (or European, for that matter) thrash. But more than once I found myself, thinking, "fuck, this right here just sounded like old-school death metal." Throw in Sabina Classen's harsh vocals that often flirt with death metal territory; she has a much harsher style than what you'll hear on "regular thrash" and still sounds great, if not better than ever (with my limited exposition to their discography, you should take that with a grain of salt; but she does sound great on this.) I later found out that there are one or more guest vocalists on this, but I haven't been able to confirm it.

Invisible Queen is fast, sometimes brutal, full of high-octane energetic metal from an old band that can still deliver the goods and show the kids how it's done. If this is to be their swan song, then they're leaving on a high note.