Saltrubbed Eyes

Seance's second album, 2004's Saltrubbed Eyes, would also be their last, as the competent but never quite excellent Swedish death metal act chose to splinter and apply their energies elsewhere (most notably with very successful acts like the Haunted, Witchery and Satanic Slaughter). That's not to say that this album is a failure, just a missed opportunity to build upon the solid foundation laid by their debut a couple years earlier, and an additional substantiation to the bandmembers' still limited potential at this time. Breaking down the music: tracks like "Soulerosion," "Controlled Bleeding" and "'Til Death Do Us Join" most closely resemble early Entombed or Edge of Sanity with their sludgy death metal crush; their mid-level complexity and mid-paced brutality making for mid-level -- that is -- decent enough listening until one realizes there's little to distinguish them from each other. Instead, the band seems reticent to break out of the most basic death metal mold, as if to do so would brand them sellouts, when, in fact, it's exactly when they add a few symphonic accents to "Angelmeat (Part II)," bring nicely evil harmonies to close the title track, or the odd clean-picked melody lines to instrumental "Hidden Under Scars," that Seance achieve their most distinctive moments. Consider all of the above, as well as the bandmembers' later triumphs with different bands, and it's really no tragedy that Seance called it a day after this LP. ~ Eduardo Rivadavia|