Ida Maria has never been a subtle writer, but Seven Deadly Sins +3 turns her blunt force into a framework. It’s a concept record that refuses the sermon, treating vice as lived-in autobiography—funny, furious, and unembarrassed by its own contradictions. Nearly a decade removed from her last full-length, she returns on Indie Recordings with a set that zigzags from serrated punk to glam-kissed stomp to country shadowplay, binding it all with a voice that still sounds like a lit match dropped in a gas tank.
“Lazy” detonates first: fuzzed guitars, a marching beat, and a chant that twists shame into swagger. The arrangement is stacked but never fussy—grit up front, choir glow in the margins—telegraphing the album’s core move of turning guilty impulses into communal release. “Envy” starts with a parched twang before erupting into feedback and teeth-bared holler; Ida’s phrasing slides from drawl to bark as if jealousy itself were corroding the meter. “I Pushed Too Hard” rides a locomotive groove, the chorus less boast than bruise, while “Lust” slinks on a bassline that keeps tugging the song toward the dance floor even as the guitars keep tearing at it.
“More” is the glammiest cut, all high-heeled bravado and sticky hooks, and “Pride”—the most immediate single here—struts on a dangerous pocket that doubles as a manifesto about owning your choices. When she leans into provocation on “Pussy and Money,” the joke is barbed but purposeful: exaggeration as critique, delivered with a wink and a snarl. “Still Angry” (co-written with Joonas Parkkonen) channels that title into taut, percussive release, while “Melancolia” stretches into a moody sprawl without losing pulse. “Who Will Save Rock and Roll” plays like a tongue-in-cheek rallying cry, less elegy than dare. And the closer, “Black Eyed Hill,” dials down the distortion to let the fatigue and resolve in her voice do the heavy lifting; it’s the reckoning after the riot.
Across the record, the core band locks tight and mean, and the production embraces imperfection—the clipping edges, the room noise, the feeling that these songs were built to blow out small-club PAs. Cameo textures flicker in and out, but Ida remains the fixed point: ragged, magnetic, unafraid to be ridiculous if truth requires it. The sequencing can swerve and the runtime sprawls, but that messiness feels intentional. Sin isn’t tidy; neither is this album. What it is, thrillingly, is alive—an audacious confession shouted into the void and answered back by a choir of amps.
