Girlschool - Guilty As Sin

Published November 13 2015

*=Staff's pick	Come The Revolution* Take It Like A Band Guilty As Sin Treasure* Awkward Position Staying Alive Perfect Storm Painful Night Before* Everybody Loves (Saturday Night)

Genre	Hard Rock/Heavy Metal	Kim McAuliffe	Vocals
Tracks	10	Enid Williams	Vocals
Running time	35 Min.	Jackie Chambers	Guitar
Label	UDR/Warner	Kim McAuliffe	Guitar
Release	November 13, 2015	Enid Williams	Bass
Country	England	Denise Dufort	Drums
Producer	Chris Tsangarides		Keyboard
Similar artists	---

It seems like Girlschool has been around, in way or another, since the first seconds after the Big Bang and yet is my knowledge of the band's past achievements almost down to nothing, although they're now releasing their 13th album to date. Like many people who dig heavier styles of music, I've heard a couple of songs of this band here and there and I reckon that I remember them mostly for being some chicks who hung out with Motörhead's classic lineup in some pictures in a few magazines back in the day.

As an entirety, the song material on Guilty As Sin is actually rather poor and my thoughts instantly tell me that this band is very much in need of better songwriting skills to be able to put out an overall valid or intriguing release. They are neither really capable of bringing forward their old school street metal in a way that I find relevant and in the end I can only find some stuff occasionally that has the power and the kick-ass feel to attract my interest. Like most songs on the album, the band's cover version of Bee Gees' classic song Staying Alive doesn't work out that well either, even if it's perhaps not a worse experience than the original.

Besides a couple of decent moments, most of these somewhat punk influenced traditional metal songs come out with a certain lack of strength, quality and energy and they kind of end up in a vapid and dull environment for the most part. I don't see this release as an utterly piss-poor effort, but as you have already figured out of course, it's nothing that I fancy at all. It doesn't fit my expectations of a nice and handsome record and most likely Girlschool will still be a band that's forever dwelling in the lower outskirts of heavy music.