Clearly, someone put a lot of effort into making "Convicted By Sin" a visually hooking product, or, at the very least, something unique. Not surprisingly, the band's vision of death metal is anything but safe and expected. Shining Of's source of light (hurr hurr) comes from the avid use of keyboards and saxophones which both add ambience and brutality to the group's blast beats and traditional death metal riffs. Accompanied by adequate growling vocals, Shining Of's assault has an exoskeleton that won't surprise many. However, "Convicted By Sin" adds many interesting hues to the picture, solely because of the upfront keyboard melodies and the avant-garde nature often implanted in most tracks. The riffs and guitar parts are actually pretty basic and unimaginative, but the experimental edge of "Convicted By Sin" is clearly its source of vital life, and everything moves quite smoothly when all is said and done.

There are times when Shining Of listens like Harvey Dent in the studio: equal parts death metal and avant-garde, yet always entertaining stuff. Songs like "Dies Ater" (Dies After?) and "Shining" tilt the scales in favor of the experimental side of things, with various parts of the former showing traces of songwriting akin to Unexpect, and the latter encouraging the saxophone to lead it to a land of jazz-laden grace. It all ranges from decent to utterly creative and perplexing, really. My only complaint happens to be the lack of variety in the guitar work; there could be a hint of innovation added somewhere in the basic death metal chops. Other factors, like the production and sound quality, are free of hazards and contribute to an enjoyable, spicy record of strange death metal.