When you look at the Metal Archives page, you see a band picture of four women dressed in suitably 1980's metal garb. And looking at the band lineup, you see four women listed. But this is all fake information. Original Sin is a fake band. The actual Original Sin musicians are primarily the musicians from Virgin Steele, who also recorded the Exorcist album Nightmare Theatre, another fake album. The one outlier on this release is that the vocals are performed by Virgin Steele vocalist David DeFeis's sister Danae. The other musicians are the male musicians that performed on the Exorcist album, two of whom were in Virgin Steele. So why the charade?
Apparently members of the band, and DeFeis in particular, wanted to stretch their wings a little bit musically and play something a little darker. Specifically DeFeis wanted to write a black metal album (Exorcist) and a darker traditional metal album (Original Sin), but the manager did not want him to release these albums as Virgin Steele because of their established sound. In addition, their manager claimed that the band owed him money and wanted albums to release that they would not be paid for.
Well enough of that, how is it? Actually pretty damn good. This is extremely impressive darker-edged heavy/power metal with some very catchy songs, if ridiculously over-the-top evil and campy as hell. The vocals soar over the riffs and it is clear that Danae is having a great time doing this. She is apparently operatically trained and it shows.
This album is a very entertaining oddity. It is obvious the band members had a hell of a good time writing and recording it and there are some exceptional songs on it. Even if it is a fake project, it resulted in a damn good album.
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