Caliban - Gravity

Published March 25 2016

*=Staff's pick	Paralyzed* Mein Schwarzes Herz Who I Am* Left For Dead Crystal Skies Walk Alone The Ocean's Heart brOKen For We Are Forever Inferno* No Dream Without A Sacrifice Hurricane*

Genre	Metalcore/Heavy Metal	Andreas Dörner	Vocals
Tracks	12	Denis Schmidt	Vocals
Running time	46 Min.	Denis Schmidt	Guitar
Label	Century Media	Marc Görtz	Guitar
Release	March 25, 2016	Marco Schaller	Bass
Country	Germany	Patrick Grün	Drums
Producer	B. Richter/M. Görtz/M. Neumann		Keyboard
Similar artists	---

The German metal act Caliban is able to come out with nice melodies in a harsh and aggressive environment. They push forward lots of massive structures to build a strong base to stand upon whilst simultaneously releasing their anger both musically and vocally and this record contains tons of heavy riffs in a kind of modern setting. The band isn't entering some kind of completely new era with this album and if you've listened to their past accomplishments, you pretty much already know what this one will be like.

This piece of work isn't gonna blow you away in terms of technically perfected vocals, because the vocal performances from both singers frankly aren't the greatest ones ever to end up on a metal album. Yet I must point out that both the harsh and angry style as well as the cleaner sung parts still contribute quite well to the overall appearance of the album.

Even if each individual song has its own characteristics, this release as a whole seems a little bit monotonous. I think simply because of the almost constant bounces between aggressive vocals in the verses and clean vocals in the choruses. There's also no doubt that the choruses on the record are what you're supposed to get stuck on big-time and on that specific department I have to say that they are able to put out really appealing stuff.

I'm however looking for more frequent great moments to consider this a really good creation, because a few awesome parts can't make a whole album stand out mighty and strong. I basically like what I hear, but still the music isn't really able to get that final and crucial grab of me. This is a pretty good album in the end anyway, I think, and therefore I have decided to hand out 6 chalices to Caliban's new effort Gravity.

Performance	Originality	Production	Vocals	Songwriting
6	4	6	5	6

Summary
6 chalices of 10 - Tobbe