It looks like history is repeating itself in a way. At The Gates released a few albums (which were great of course) eventually culminating in their last and greatest achievement, Slaughter Of The Soul, a genre defining classic. Probably realizing that they reached their crowning achievement, they immediately disbanded. 

Thus paving the way for The Haunted, a thrashier collective containing (at first) 3 out 5 ATG members. After releasing a few quality albums, they have (in my opinion) now reached their crowning achievement. The Dead Eye simply is their most varied and complete album to date.

Actually, their older albums weren't really that interesting to me. I only begun to like them at the time of their third (one kill wonder) and really got interested at the time rEVOLVER was released. So, now we have The Dead Eye, and as I said: I love it, because it's so much more than the thrash of yore. (no pun)

It of course still has all the thrashy riffs, the speed and the aggression, but the songs are quite amazing. The guitarwork is stellar, creating all kinds of depressing moods (think ATG), and Peter Dolving again has upped his ante vocalwise. Combining his aggressive hardcore bark with a more mellow singing voice some might remember from Mary Beats Jane, it really creates an interesting spectrum of tonal textures, which add so much more to the music. 

This record is simply 'done'. The amount of details, the tightness and the variation. This is
what they probably always needed to sound like, a bit like growing up for the lack of a better term. It's a monster of a modern metal album, period. 

There will be people not digging this, or bragging about a loss of thrash elements, but hey, screw them, they're missing the point. This is a progressing band, without any sort
of bowing down to the man, or sucking corporate cock. So there.

So, history repeats itself then, but don't split up please, I'd like some more.