Legends of Kazakhstan

SevenSins hail from Kazakhstan, and this alone adds extra interest to their releases. Especially when you first come across the band, you have greater curiosity about what exactly you are going to hear. This, therefore, makes the listener give their full attention to the band, but it also hides a trap. Surely, at some point in the past, you might have come across an album from a country where you had no idea a Metal scene existed. Subconsciously, you created expectations for your discovery, hoping you found a rare treasure from an exotic place. Having accepted this same injustice, I put SevenSins’ CD in the CD player for the first time.

This band has existed since 2008, but their first full album was released in 2013, and since then they have released four full albums and one EP. Their label sent me this album back in 2020 when ‘Legends of Kazakhstan’ was released, their third full work. Here the band’s lineup consists of three musicians, and from what I understand from their previous and subsequent releases, they haven’t had a stable lineup all these years. The album contains eight tracks, the first of which is an atmospheric, ambient introduction, and the last is a cover from Суицид, another band from Kazakhstan. Here we find a mix of melodic Black/Death with quite a few Thrash elements, played with a lot of energy, professionalism, and passion. But is that enough to make a good album?

Musically, the album is almost flawless. The songs are relatively short in duration, four out of their six tracks do not exceed four minutes, and their structure is simple and very accessible to the listener. The riffs have variety, are pleasant and stay in the listener’s mind. The performance of the musicians is technically high-level. Nevertheless, in my opinion, it lacks passion and imagination. The album sounds like it came out of a factory. Commonplace riffs and melodies, typical sound without anything special, standardized vocals. The band has taken all the good elements of the genre and tried to create tracks using all these elements, something they have done very well, but losing the most essential element, in my opinion, the personal touch. The lyrics are written in Russian and included in the CD booklet.

I can’t say that I discovered the hidden treasure I would have liked, but neither that this release is for throwing away. Overall, it is a good release, showing the quality of the musicians both technically and compositionally. I wouldn’t recommend you listen to this album due to the lack of character. However, those who are not bothered by this, ‘Legends of Kazakhstan’ is a very pleasant release that has all the elements one might seek in this genre.