Band:	Guilty As Charged
Album:	Leap Of Faith
Style:	Heavy metal, Thrash metal
Release date:	June 13, 2014
A review by:	R Lewis

01. Preach To The Masses
02. Last Chance
03. Leap Of Faith
04. I'll Never
05. Lone Wolf
06. Elysium
07. Lack Of Control
08. Down

I'll semi-quote another review when I say that one of the few things dividing Leap Of Faith from a classic of its genre is the release date.

In fact, if Guilty As Charged's latest had been released in the early 90's, we'd have surely heard a lot about them. But now, with this last years' thrash revival ongoing, who says there's no space for new and important recruits?

Embodying the more immediate side of Iced Earth, and also picking bits and pieces from other genre's monsters such as Metallica and Testament, Leap Of Faith is everything a thrash album should be: not elaborate yet tremendously effective riffing dominates, as a raw authenticity pervades the whole release, conveying true musical reasoned fury.

Guilty As Charged isn't a blast of fresh air, since this music, with little differences, has been played for years; it's more like opening a window in a dusty room. The slightly modern cut the band has given to the well-known heavy thrash, in fact, serves not to make of Leap Of Faith a blatant rip-off of some classic, and in the meantime shows how the genre, with its various standard-bearers inevitably aging (yet still well-functioning), can have a future outside the hearts of the retro nostalgic.

De Vuyssere's vocals, heavily inspired by James Hetfield but also resembling Stu Block's darker side - the one shown in Plagues Of Babylon, less in the more varied Dystopia - blend together every one of the frequent solos and bridges following aforementioned classic-esque guitars, offhanded drums and a bass luckily remembered in the production process. Something that should be obvious, yet seemingly isn't.

Leap Of Faith shines also production-wise, since the sound is both really clear being a self-released album, and true as every thrash note has to be. The whole album has a great feeling of "garage metal" (in its more positive meaning): it sounds concrete, aggressive yet intimate, as if the vocalist is shouting right at you in anger.

The only setback that could be found in Leap Of Faith is the fact that it doesn't move much from the modern heavy thrash already established from the first track, but this being a rather short release - it clocks at little more than half an hour - this doesn't come as an insurmountable obstacle.

Despite being graced by a Stryper-like cover artwork, Leap Of Faith is heavy, furious yet with enough thought put upon it to make sure that Guilty As Charged becomes a name to keep an eye on in the modern thrash scene.