Judging by the artwork of the front cover, Thick As Blood must be a Swedish death metal band with twiddling guitar solos and generic vocals. Guess what? Nope, it isn’t. Nearly 3 years ago 7 people from South Florida packed a straight edge hardcore band, baptized it with the name Thick As Blood and simply cut their way through to be able to reach the current point. “Moment of Truth” is a hard-hitting album. It flows in the vein of current Terror, Hatebreed and Sworn Enemy releases. Similar to Since the Flood and Death Before Dishonor, too, you can hardly make a mistake by picking this CD, because with song titles like “Officer Rodrigues” (curious to know the man, aren’t you?), “Lead the Victory” and “Hold Fast” there’s no chance that you spend a boring afternoon. It’s an essential buy for all straight edgers from the old-school hardcore community. As a proper metalhead, I’m not much into the ideological side of straight edge, but the intensity is here. The faith and the power too. They’ve been missing in metal for so long that we almost forgot that the whole genre was about those things, and now (with certain exceptions, of course) they can be found only in bands like Thick As Blood. They are fresh and new. They are brutal, honest and focused. What more do you need to get involved in their “Moment of Truth”?