Christina: I actually preferred recording Seven and singing it to Revolutions. I think that may be because I'd got used to the "prog" way of dealing with songs. After being used to recording 3- or 4-minute songs, it was a definite culture shock to have to record 15- or 20-minute pieces. I think Seven is a lot more accessible. It took a lot longer to record Seven. I was a bit worried, initially, about my voice. I had to see a throat specialist, because I thought there might be some nodules on my vocal chords. Rob Reed picks up on these things, and said my voice had changed, which it does as you get older anyway. I think that made me a bit paranoid, and then when we were recording I kept having coughing fits. That was a bit of a scare, but I think some of it was psychological. When I got into the studio, I kept thinking "I can't do this." But in the end I got through it and it turned out really well--I hope! I actually really enjoyed singing the whole album, and Steve Reed's lyrics are very clever.

Steve: The first album was one long concept, with a running theme of "Faith." Four long tracks. Double album. They said it would never work, but obviously we proved them wrong. The second album we wanted to make more accessible, hence the shorter tracks. Not really short, but shorter! So Rob said: "What we need is seven or eight tracks. Hmm. Seven tracks … seven … sins!" It was as simple as that, really.
Rob: I wanted to make it shorter, really. More instant. Also, on the first album I intentionally made it in the spirit of Yes and Genesis. The sort of music I wanted to listen to but isn’t made anymore. Seven album sounds more like "us," Magenta, really.
Steve: Lyrically, It would have been easy to take literal interpretations of the Seven deadly sins, but it's not prog, is it? It would have been too easy, and too simple. What I did was take a basic idea of what the sin was about, and then turn it on its head to make people think about what the lyric is about.  Having said that, we try to make our lyrics as easy for people to relate to as possible, and to get as much emotion from them as possible, so that you get a reaction from people.

Track by Track

Gluttony
Rob: It was nice to go out and play that one before we recorded it. It's one of my favourite tracks on the album. It's based around the riff right at the start, and it's been suggested that it’s based loosely on "Back in New York City" by Genesis.
Steve: With "Gluttony," the character has no other way of living--she's a glutton for punishment, so it's not exactly "gluttony" as you’d normally think about it.

Envy
Envy has a track-long vibe to it because it was written as a song. It originally kicked into a really fast section in the middle, but I took it all out. It’s the only track on the album that's verse – chorus – verse – chorus – middle eight. Just a very long middle eight! There's a bit like "Entangled," in there, a bit like "Awaken," and the chorus sounds to me like Shirley Bassey. (The Welsh diva that sang a variety of Bond Themes).
Steve: "Envy" was based on the idea of some person that has lost their family. My wife always says I have depressing ideas! I thought of a divorced man seeing a young couple in a park. It's about trying to keep what you've got, because when you lose it, it's heartbreaking. I suppose, for a change, it's a standard take on envy.

Lust
Rob: "Lust" is prog with a capital "p". It has a nice bit of Santana in the middle.
Steve: It's about lust for life! She wants to live, she wants to help people, which is what she did on the first album( in the White Witch), and even when they turn against her, she still wants to help them. At the end, she turns herself over to sister Luna, which gives us scope to bring her back on a later album.

Greed
Rob: "Greed," I call the Doris Day track, because it's very like a show tune at the end. It's the only song with a story and it’s the longest track on the album. It was originally going to be the opening track of the album, and it had a 5-minute instrumental section at the start, but I decided to cut it down. We're not playing it live because it's a bit hard, especially the last section, which is very orchestral. But we might pull it off one day! (It was later played, in reaaranged form, in 2005. Ed)It was the hardest song to get right in the final mix, especially capturing the atmosphere. It almost came off the album because it wasn't working, but now I'm glad we left it on.
Steve: It's about an actress. It’s about greed for the limelight. She needs to have people looking at her, their adoration. She needs to be loved. She thinks she is on the way down, so she starts doing ever more outlandish things to stay in the limelight. In the end she ends up in the asylum with all the angels and the damned dancing around in their white gowns!

Anger
Rob: "Anger" is my favourite track on the album. When we originally recorded it, we had the first four minutes and then it stopped without the guitar solo, but then we tried the solo and now I just love the atmosphere it creates.
Christina: I really like "Anger" because of its simplicity. It was really easy to sing, and I think it's a really lovely song.
Steve: "Anger" is about anger against God. A man has lost his wife, who has died and it seems to him that God has taken her on a whim. It's a man's frustration at his loss.

Pride
Steve: Pride is about my wife and my daughter. It's about being brought up by a single parent. It's more of a modern topic. It’s about doing everything you can to give your child a start in life.
Rob: I worried about "Pride" because I thought it was going to be too commercial. It’s very "poppy" in places. You always wonder what people want, and it's very easy to start writing for the marketplace, and there was certainly more of that on the second album than the first.  So much changes during the production process.  Pride was quite different until a couple of weeks before the album was finished, when I added another minute of guitar solos and instrumentation.

Sloth
Rob: It’s another mood piece - quite Pink Floyd-like. It's very atmospheric, and Martin Shellard plays on it to get a different feel, in the main. Nothing that Chris can't play, though, so though we don't play it live now, we will do at some point (the band did play it live in 2005.Ed) . The end section could go on forever!
Christina: I treally like Sloth. Actually one of the bands I did really liked in my younger days was Pink Floyd, which I suppose is why I veered towards that one.
Steve: "Sloth" is about a Native American tribe, whose members, when they know their time has come, go off and wait for death. So it's not sloth as such. I've given it a different slant.