Two live tracks from 1996’s Psychostasia, a re-recording of of "Ancestral Souls" and a couple of brand new tracks are featured on this five track EP. Opening things up is "Seven", which has a fairly typical Scandinavian death metal sound, with somewhat weak vocals, drums which don’t seem to mix well with the music, very heavy bass and a fairly unnecessary solo tossed in for no real reason. The next new track is "The Sleep Of Ishtar" which has a fairly solid, slow heavy and steady groove, the music is actually pretty good for this type of metal, unfortunately the raspy vocals don’t mix well with the music, but on the whole the song is decent. "Captured In Eternal Lost" is the new title for the re-written and re-recorded "Ancestral Souls", which has a decent Gothenburg groove, the vocals fit this song better, unfortunately on this track it’s the drums which don’t blend well with the rest of the music. Next is the first of the two live songs recorded during the band’s European tour alongside Incantation and Deeds Of Flesh in 1997, "As The Gods Succumbed". I’ve never heard the original, but the live recording is the kind of raw, brutal death I love to listen to. There’s just something about the raw sound of live music that I’m drawn to, and this song is definitely the highlight of Seven, with it’s thick heavy groove and angry vocals, very much worthy of raised goat horns from the crowd. Unfortunately the final track, "Across The Grey Waters", lacks the same aggression, groove, heaviness and vocals of the previous song, it just doesn’t do anything for me. Seven was recorded as a sampler to the band’s upcoming full-length CD, to be released on Repulse Records, but the Finns have been dropped. It’s probably for the better, other than "As The Gods Succumbed" the album didn’t offer much of interest.

Written By: Teufel