To say my exposure to Seven Witches' music is limited would be an understatement. My only experience with them is the Year of the Witch concert DVD that was released last year. The disk impressed me, and I wanted to get some of their studio material, but never actually got around to it.

As a side note, I was introduced to the solos work of Witches' guitar maestro, Jack Frost, around the same time with Out in the Cold, another recording that impressed me. So, now it's a year later and I find a new Seven Witches release waiting for me.

When I saw the band name, it was like a light went off in my head. I eagerly loaded the CD into the player and pressed play. I was greeted by a crunchy mid-tempo guitar intro, accompanied by nice, evenly paced double bass drum before Alan Tecchio's voice came in and properly kicked the song off. The track is called "Deadly Sins," and it is the title track kicking off the band's sixth album, a concept album loosely based upon the seven deadly sins as described by Ghandhi.

Straight-up uncompromising metal is what Jack Frost and company deliver with this release. Looking around the net, I find that many were disappointed with the Witches' last release, 2005's Amped, but feel that this is a step in the right direction (to varying degrees, of course). I cannot make the comparison, not having heard Amped. However, I can speak to the quality of the tunes collected here.

If you want metal, and only metal, Deadly Sins will definitely be worth your time. There is no thrash, screamo, emo, hardcore, metalcore, black, death, or any other sub-classification at work here. All you get is metal that is a throwback to such bands as Judas Priest. Most of the cuts fall into the mid-tempo range, but when needed they are able to crank up the speed to satisfy that segment of the audience. Driving guitars, galloping riffs, strong drumming, soaring vocals, they have all the elements needed to succeed. However good they are as a pure metal act, they are not a combination to achieve mainstream popularity, and that is a shame.