Similar Bands: Killswitch Engage, Bleeding Through, God Forbid
Review:
Caliban. Now this is a blast from the past. With the exception of 2005's "The Split Program II" with Heaven Shall Burn, it's been about 7 years since I have paid any form of attention to this band. Once they started to incorporate clean vocals and attempt to mimic the popular commercial sound ala Killswitch Engage, I gave up on them.
With the great albums like Vent and Small Boy And A Grey Heaven and a handful of live performances as my only means of comparison, I must say this is a lot better than what I expected but falls miles short of the bands earlier work. There are 4 albums in between the days I jocked this band until now, and I fortunately have only heard snippets here and there. What I did get a chance to hear was disappointing to say the least. This album however is somewhat a return to form. Before you get excited though, they still incorporate a great deal of the clean vocal-melody filled nonsense. But when they stray away from the crap they crank out some of that solid heavy metalcore they were known for back in the day. Melodic thrashy metalcore with powerful breakdowns.
While it might seem that I really enjoyed this record, I ultimately found myself annoyed with having to accept the fact that this is Caliban. The days of the mainstream metalcore with clean vocals outweighs the number of years they spent as one of the best metalcore bands of the late 90's/early 2000's. Instead of the full return to form, we got delivered a 50/50 of good vs. bad. It's not complete garbage but I think I would better handle knowing that it's just another disc of theirs I could skip over, rather than getting excited to hear them tease at a return to form.
While this album could have been a lot worse, it could also be a lot better. The heavy parts remind me a lot of the earlier records but unfortunately they still go back to playing the safe style with lots of melody and clean singing. If you were hoping for a review to say "Caliban is back!" you are going to be disappointed. This album is better than anything I've heard them do in the past few years but it's still not the Caliban I want to hear. If you are curious to know what I'm talking about, I'd suggest taking a trip over to their MySpace page to listen to the new songs posted on there. You'll understand where I'm coming from once you hear one song.
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