Seventh Sin are a six piece band hailing from Winnipeg, Canada and their self released five track EP 'Stranger Among Gods' is a fantastic introduction to a band musically competent and exciting to boot. After listening to this EP I was half surprised to find out that this is a totally self released product with no major or even minor label behind them because this is some seriously great sounding stuff. The production is fantastic, a job credited to John Paul Peters of Private Ear Recording alongside Seventh Sin themselves and shows a true understanding of every component that's gone into this collection of five tracks. I don't think any part of this EP could sound any better than it already does, sonic perfection or damn near close to it. But what about the songs themselves I hear you say.

Well, opening track 'The Giant' is an instant attention grabber starting up with revving engines mixed with deadly riffs leaning both musically and lyrically towards a heavy Judas Priest influence. "High top Reeboks stuck to the pedal, nothing can stop this demon metal!" Are they fucking class lyrics or what? 'The Giant' could be the unofficial soundtrack to Marty McFly giving the heavy metal parking lot some serious DeLorean wheel smoke for sure. Some Hammond sounding moments from keyboards-man Dan Klakowich bring some 'Highway Star' elements into play and reveal that there's definitely some classic Seventies rock influences running through the veins of Seventh Sin alongside the Eighties metal.

'They Kill Animals' is up second and has an amazing atmosphere set again with more sublime use of Klakowich's keys bringing an underlying elegance to proceedings. Vocalist Aarom Hemmersbach has tones that could cut it with some 'Puppet Master' style King Diamond and when Aarom floats through the line "Is it all just a bad nightmare?" it almost sounds like the King himself is helping to weave a magical spell into this enchanting tapestry of tuneage from the Canadian maestros. I guess I should point out that I mean "middle range" King not "growly demon" King or "high pitched" King.

'The Raven' soars into life with some melodic guitar and has almost haunting tones from Klakowich littered amongst the riffs which really helps to push the Sin boys elegant style of delivery up a good few notches into the realm of classic Savatage. 'Dragonhouse' sees some of the heaviest riffing on the EP yet it still holds onto some of those progressive Savatage styles and has Hemmersbach bridging the gap between Diamond and Halford with vocals both spine tingling and bone shaking. Epic.

'Silent Blue' wraps things up with a slow grooving and blossoming atmospheric build rather like 'Blood Red Skies' from Judas Priest. Again Klakowich's keys haunt subtly in the background most of the time only occasionally breaking to the fore. They're never overtly "in your face" but instead surreptitiously fill a void you wouldn't even know was there but they bring something truly special to what Seventh Sin are doing and in a way are the heartbeat and soul of this band. In short 'Stranger Among Gods' offers five tracks each as strong as the next with no dips in performance or quality. This is a collection of confident and exciting work, superb songs built with outstanding metallic craftsmanship in all departments. I'm certainly looking forward to seeing what the future holds for Canada's Seventh Sin.

Check the tunes out here: http://www.myspace.com/weareseventhsin

Buy the EP here: http://seventhsinstore.bigcartel.com/