Human voices change with age. That is unavoidable. Singers adapt their voices or their parts to it, but in a full-force singing genre like heavy metal, there is often some loss of power. And singers with a bit of grit somehow tend to be the first to deteriorate. Not Leather Leone. Despite being in her sixties, Leone’s rough, sandpaper vocal cords are still as convincing on last year’s ‘We Are the Chosen’ as they were on the early Chastain albums in the eighties. If anything, she sounds even better here, simply because the songs of her own band Leather are better.

Because really, the main thing that sets ‘We Are the Chosen’ and its predecessor ‘II’ apart from anything else that Leone has done is the quality of the songwriting. David T. Chastain always had a bunch of good ideas, but those often felt like they were clunkily thrown together and I have the feeling Leone had to adapt to the riffs rather than the other way around. In Brazilian guitarist Vinnie Tex, Leone found her perfect songwriting partner. Together, they have come up with a bunch of exciting songs that truly bring out the best in Leone’s powerful voice.

So how does ‘We Are the Chosen’ sound? In essence it is the type of American heavy metal that sounds old school enough to please Leone’s longtime fans, but also has a distinctly contemporary borderline thrash metal bite. It isn’t too dissimilar to Rob Halford’s ‘Crucible’ album or maybe a slightly more melodic take on what Todd LaTorre did on ‘Rejoice in the Suffering’. ‘We Are the Chosen’ has the benefit of being a bit more consistent than either of those albums, barely having any fat needing to be trimmed. This is simply forty-seven minutes of excellent no-frills heavy metal.

‘We Take Back Control’ is the perfect opener for the album, as it is an uptempo stomper full of simple, meaty riffs and a catchy chorus that is easy to shout along, while the following ‘Always Been Evil’ dials the tempo and the aggression up even more. Later on, ‘Dark Days’ is a true highlight in the way it brings it old school power metal majesty up-to-date. The title track and to a lesser extent ‘Who Rules the World’ are a bit more theatrical in their approach, though not overly so, while ‘The Glory in the End’ is a simple, but incredibly strong closer.

If it wasn’t obvious yet: I love ‘We Are the Chosen’. There is always room for improvement – the thick, modern production kind of takes the sting out of the bluesy Sabbath groove of ‘Shadows’ and the dark ballad ‘Hallowed Ground’, though surprisingly good, goes on for a good minute longer than it should have – but Leather the band simply found a formula that works for them and that makes Leather the singer sound better than she ever has. Hopefully this band has a few more albums of this calibre in them. The music is so powerful and free of pretense that I’d love to hear more.

Recommended tracks: ‘We Take Back Control’, ‘Dark Days’, ‘Always Been Evil’