Review by Jack on December 9, 2001.

Again Century Media Records in their wisdom, decide to run with another Identity # album, here we have “Identity 7: Deadly Sins”. Again like with their past Identity albums they all serve as good samplers to new and old band’s work. And as long as they keep pricing them moderately I will remain a happy person, as I’m sure much of the metal populace will too.

I am going to run through each band and their track and give a one word description which will save time and me going through my endless ramblings about not so good bands and good bands.

Iced Earth ‘Jack’: They can no wrong in my book, and with such a quality song title. Successful bridge between two genres.
Krisiun ‘Evil Gods Havoc’: Shaping up to be one of my favourite traditional death metal acts.
God Forbid ‘Go Your Own Way’: Decent old metal thrash/death from these fellas.
Haste ‘Confessions of a Lesser Known Saint’: A bit girly, vocalist is a bit soft for my liking.
Cryptopsy ‘Shroud’: Boring... this brand of death metal just puts me to sleep.
Candiria ‘Without Water’: Absolute crap for the first half of the song, then it becomes an average track.
Skinlab ‘Come ‘n’ Get It’: I really can’t dig the nu-metal riffs these fellas employ, which in turn makes it hard to appreciate this song.
Stuck Mojo ‘Ten Years’: One of the best tracks from Stuck Mojo’s last album. SO damn catchy.
Jag Panzer ‘Take in the Sky’: Never liked Jag Panzer’s tunes, and ‘Take in the Sky’ ain’t going to change it.
Onward ‘Witches Winter Eternal’: Funny, overblown power metal, that actually does work.
Lacuna Coil ‘To Live is to Hide’: Nice track with good vocal interplay. One of Lacuna Coil’s better outputs.
Tad Morose ‘Another Time Around’: Catchy chorus leaves the rest of this song for dead.
Nevermore ‘The River Dragon has Come’: About the average track on “Identity 7: Deadly Sin”, which isn’t too bad of a thing.
...And Oceans ‘Esprit De Corps’: In the top three for tracks on this compilation. Bombastic synthesized goodness.
Sigh ‘Corpsecry’: Psychedelic metal from Japan, Sigh are pretty good, and you should check out their album “Imaginary Sonicscape”.
Scar Culture ‘Keep it to Myself’: Not too bad, vocalist sounds something like Adam from Alchemist with his spoken lyrical voice.
The Forsaken ‘Betrayal Between Individuals’: I suppose you could call this black metal, and its not too bad.
Carnal Forge ‘Covered with Fire (I’m Hell)’: Soilwork-esque screams accompany American type death metal. Average really.
Eyehategod ‘Self Medication Blues’: I hate Eyehategod, they write such slow grindy crap.

Bottom Line: Like with “Identity 6”, “Identity 7” won’t be winning any music awards for thought on track selection or playing lists, but serves as a cheap introduction to some unknown band’s work.

Categorical Rating Breakdown

Originality: N/A
Musicianship: 7
Atmosphere: 5.5
Production: 8
Overall: 5.5

Rating: 6.5 out of 10