Seven Witches have, after two independently released albums as Frost Bite, made the jump to Massacre. They released their debut album, "Second War in Heaven" and, now, "City of Lost Souls".

Did you know that, if you mix the letters in 'Seven Witches', remove a few and add some others, you get 'Metal Church'? Not a coincidence, because "City of Lost Souls" is the album that "Masterpeace" ought have been. Vocalist Bobby Lucas sounds like David Wayne on a good day. Production is almost as heavy as Metal Church's first few albums, and the songs sound heavy and cool. The most audible difference is the addition of keyboards in several tracks.

The album contains a handful of, well, classic heavy metal tracks. The bio calls it 'power metal', but that's not doing it justice. I have entirely different connotations with power metal, none of which I feel apply to Seven Witches. Songs such as the title track, "Atlantis", "Witching Hour", "Legend of Sleepy Hollow" and "We Are the Coven" are the stuff that metal history is built on, and the Exciter cover "Pounding Metal" sounds better than what I (vaguely) recall of the original. There's another cover on the album as well, "Hell is for Children" (originally by Pat Benatar I believe), which is OK.

Though I'd hasten to add that Seven Witches are no Metal Church clone per se, Metal Church fans (as well as lovers of melodic heavy metal in general) will love this.

Click here to check out or buy this CD

RK

Written July 2000

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