UMUR
Five Across the Eyes is the 2nd full-length studio album by Danish death metal act Iniquity. The lineup that recorded the debut album Serenadium (1996) have all been replaced by new faces. There´s not a single founding member left in the lineup which makes for quite an interesting situation.
Knowing this I´m actually a bit astounded that the music sounds very much like...well Iniquity. But then again as I recall there are no founding members left in Napalm Death either and they always sound unmistakably like Napalm Death now don´t they? The music on Five Across the Eyes has taken a notch up when talking about technical playing and brutality. Now I thought the debut was a pretty brutal album but this one beats the debut by a couple of lengths. The music is still primarily influenced by the technical part of the US death metal scene. I have one complaint which is a complaint I have about many of the more relentlessly brutal death metal albums that I hear and that´s lack of memorability and difficulty telling the songs apart. That´s a minor issue here too, but the songs are of high quality throughout so I guess I shouldn´t complain too much.
The production is pretty good. Better than on the debut.
Five Across the Eyes is a good quality death metal album and to those who enjoy technically well played and brutal death metal I find the album highly recommendable. I prefer my death metal a bit more emotionally varied though so a 3 star rating is warranted from me.