8 DEADLY SINS

Manticora's 8 Deadly Sins is part of that weird metal subgenre of "hospital bed concept albums" - you know, the sort where the protagonist spends the entire piece lying in a hospital bed injured or comatose or dying or all three and wander about in their memories. Queensryche might be the originators, Ayreon have done it too, and I'm pretty sure there's other examples I'm forgetting.

Anyway, our protagonist this time around seems to have lived a pretty mean life, because he's contemplating his sins - and given that at least one of the songs is overtly themed around the Holocaust, they seem to be pretty harsh ones at that. Like a great many rock operas, the lyrics end up so vague that you're more or less tasked with working out the story for yourself, but it's not really necessary to enjoy the album, which is an enjoyable slice of dark, angsty power metal.

Power metal isn't typically the metal subgenre you think of when it comes to expressing guilt and angst, but Manticora manage to pull it off, eschewing the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy and cheesy optimism of much power metal to produce an album where, even though I don't understand the story very well, nonetheless has a haunting atmosphere that makes it worth a try, even if you aren't usually a power metal listener. I don't think it's quite on the level of the very capable Safe, but it's good enough in its own way.