Band:	Seventh One
Album:	What Should Not Be
Style:	Heavy metal, Power metal
Release date:	September 27, 2004
A review by:	Malcolm

01. Eyes Of The Nation
02. How Many Tears
03. Mercenaries Call
04. Ancient Oath
05. Gallows Pole
06. Awaken Visions
07. What Should Not be
08. Where Infinity Ends
09. Shattered Glass

With their tremendous debut album "Sacrifice" (2002) Swedish/Norwegian Seventh One surprised a whole metal world, because it's not that usual with so much hysteria around a band that's releasing their first album.
But Seventh One succeeded and the band was ranked as the best new band of 2002 in several magazines and websites. But then it has been very quite around the band, and I haven't even heard that a new album was in the making before it was finish and ended up in my mailbox.

Seventh One was formed back in 1997 by the two guitarists Christoffer Hermansson and Johannes Losbäck (he is also a member of Sweden's Heavy Metallers Wolf now).
To complete the line-up they contacted some friends and Jörgen Olsson (bass), Jonny Edvardsson (drums) and Rino Fredh (vocals) joined.
After winning some prizes in a rock contest in 98, the band released their first demo in 99 and it was highly ranked by the well-known magazine Rock Hard.
The second demo came in 2000 and once again Seventh One got lots of great reviews.
And after a while labels started their show interest and one of the most anxious labels was Lars Ratz's (Metalium) Armageddon Music, and it was that label Seventh One signed with.
In 2002 Seventh One released their debut and it became a huge success.
And now when it's time their second album, they only change the drummer (for the second time, Jonny Edvardsson was changed to Mats Karlsson in 99, and now he was changed for Tobias R. Kellgren) since the debut, Lars is once again sitting in the producer chair, and everything is laid up for yet another success, right?

Not really, this time I don't think the hysteria will come, because this album is, (this is hard for me to say) not as good as the debut, I'm actually a bit disappointed.
I know that the successor to a great album often turns out to be quite bad, but I didn't expect that from Seventh One, I thought they were better than that. But now this is the fact, album number two is a disappointment.

But to be completely fair, this album also have it's good parts, and Rino Fredh is one of those good parts, even if he isn't using the way of singing that makes him original and good (You'll hear it all over the debut, but only on a few places on some of the songs here).
It's hard to explain how he sounds; you'll have to hear it with your own ears.
But that is one of the good parts; another is that it's heavier (not harder, just heavier). But its still no "Sacrifice".

The production here is yet another thing that's a little better, it's clearer, but if that's better for Seventh One I don't know, the raw production they had on their debut was perfect for the music.
The material on this second album is on the other hand worse; no song can really conquer with songs like "The Fall" or "Sacrifice" from the debut.
But there is still some quite good songs here, "How Many Tears (No, it's not a Helloween cover), "Ancient Oath" & "Gallows Pole", but the real killer is missing, and so is (as mention) almost the special part of Rino's voice, unfortunately.

But if you know Seventh One from the debut and liked it, then you'll have to get this album. Even if it's not as good as the debut, it's still enjoyable, and it is Seventh One, the most promising Heavy Metal band from Sweden.

Check Out: "How Many Tears", "Ancient Oath", "Gallows Pole" and their debut album, the tremendous "Sacrifice".