Five Across the Eyes

Iniquity are bad fucking ass. No doubt about it. When they used to walk in through the hanging doors of a Danish saloon (?), dusty old cowpokes would stop playing poker, put down their whiskey, and head for the back exit. While I have yet to hear much of their discography, everything that I have come across is meaner than a bag full of rattlesnakes thrown in a dryer then tossed into a baby stroller.

The problem is that “Five across the eyes” is holy fuck at first and then meh upon repeated listens. Why? The guitar tone sported here sounds like the ugly child of Suffocation and Entombed, and that is just as wonderful as it sounds. The growls are gravelly and low. The drumming is technical but not overly so, leaving the human element intact. Even the bass makes its presence felt. Not that this is Bassmaster 2000, mind you, but still Iniquity’s low end is bludgeoning. And the production fits their meaty hand like O.J.’s bloody glove. Actually, better than that glove. Based on their history of groove filled, semi-complicated, deeply gruff death metal I doubt Iniquity would be acquitted of any murder whatsoever.

However, even with all of these essential pieces in place, I don’t find myself popping in “Five across the eyes” as much as I used to. The problem lies in the songwriting, I’m afraid. Too many tracks sound like weaker versions of other tracks. Which is a bummer, because you can tell these Danes have the skills to pay their windmill and tulip related bills. But something’s missing to make this disc a classic.

But when they do it right, they do it right. The opener “Inhale the ghost” brings you into the wonderful world of Iniquity. It’s like finding a beautiful abandoned city in the jungle filled with gold, then being impaled with a spear by the locals. “Surgical orb” is downright violent and makes you hope that these guys stay far, far away from the operating table when you’re getting double bypass surgery. “Sidereal seas” is great too, with an odd sense of anti-melody that carries the whole thing to its conclusion. Whereupon you get kicked in the dick by “Random bludgeon battery,” whose title is a lot of fun to say in a slurred death metal voice.

On a side note, that is one problem I’ve got with Iniquity. The dude Mads has a great voice, but he rarely changes his tone (at all) and quite frequently his pronunciation sounds like a dude that’s about three beers away from liver failure. It doesn’t help the sense of repetition that plagues FATE. Whoa, I just figured out the album title spells out FATE! That is spooky as shit. I wonder if they did that on purpose. Denmark, what a country.

Back to the track by track ANALysis. Besides “Forensic alliance” and a very pretty little interlude with a chick singing (ALERT LORD K), the rest is skip material that just clogs up the pipes. But what the fuck, that’s six great songs out of a nine song disc that is under 40 minutes. So I guess Iniquity is pretty damn above average! My whole theory, that FATE is meh, will have to be discarded. As long as you don’t sit down and listen to the whole thing at once, it is actually quite awesome.

Praise Jeebus that I wrote this review. What a revelation. By simply weighing out the empirical evidence (good tracks divided by total number of tracks), how can I give these fuckers anything less than a:

66.6666666666666667 again I wonder if the 666 is on purpose? out of 10.

Originally posted on: www.globaldomination.se

When I first listened to the Iniquity cd "Five Across The Eyes", I was stunned, talent wise. As the cd was being played, I noticed insane and technical guitar riffs at a brutal style. I instantly fell in love. On the second track of the cd, entitled "Surgical Orb", you witness a catchy riff, insane drumming, and great musician work by the four members in Iniquity. The lyrics can be closely related to any Cannibal Corpse cd out there, seeing that some of Iniquity's lyrics are showing violence, such as the track "Surgical Orb".

Listening further into this cd, you have your main course of Brutal-ness, with a side of mad guitar solos. This just goes to show that you don't have to be a popular band just to be "good". The track "Reminiscene" will suprise most Death metal fans, if you are listening to this cd for the first time. Piano playing, harmony, and female voices make up this (just over one minute) song. I don't know if this song was intended as a real song, or just as a filler song, but the brutal music doesn't simply stop when you hear this song. The following songs on the album are sheer deadliness.

On the track "The Rigormortified Grip", I was stunned, and had found my top favorite song. This song still remains my favorite song these days. A brutal into leads to immediate talented, brutal, and crazy guitar riffs, again with the pummeling drumming. The guitar riff in this song is probably the most catchiest guitar riff in my opinion, due to how much Iniquity uses harmonics, not only on this song, but on the entire album.

It's like finding the needle in the haystack. Searching for a very good Death metal band that isn't popular is pretty hard to find. In this case, "Five Across The Eyes" is finding that needle in the haystack. Any Death metal fan would not be disappointed upon listening to this awesome album.

Lets start with saying that I'm normally pretty picky when it comes to death metal, but Iniquity has sure made a great album here.

The production is clear and very powerful, yet raw and aggressive as hell, which suits the rather complex music very well. Personally Ive grown sick of the whole blastbeat-or no beat death metal, but Instead of just blasting away Iniquity has made a very varied album packed with melodic leads, guttural growls, skillful musicianship, groove and catchy hooks, all served nicely in rather complex songstructures with lots of rhytm-changes and breaks.
Recommended if you like downtuned technical deathmetal played the oldschool way with a modern production and WITHOUT the shitty overtriggered drums which is ruining so much metal these days!!!

Iniquity has always been in the better end of the scale when it comes to danish death metal, and this release doesn't change that fact. HAIL INIQUITY