Caliban – Zeitgeister
Release Date: 14th May 2021
Label: Century Media
Pre-Order/Pre-Save
Genre: Metalcore
FFO: Heaven Shall Burn, As I Lay Dying, Evergreen Terrace, Betraying the Martyrs, Bleed From Within, The Iron Son, Annisokay.
Review By: Ryan Shearer
Caliban are a name that have been around for a while and withstood the test of time. They made their name known around the same time as Eighteen Visions, when metalcore was much more aggressive than today’s wave. Caliban found a new bubble of popularity covering ‘Sonne’ by Rammstein, and wanted to capitalise on this after realising their native tongue suited the crushing riffage of their back catalogue. Thus, Zeitgeister was born. What a fucking ace name, right? German’s have the best words. Blitzkrieg! Achtung! Zeitgeist! Fine, I’ll get on with the review.
Zeitgeister opens with a self-titled instrumental track with a gothic choir over a brooding backdrop of strings and orchestral drums. Trauma follows with a nasty guttural growl before unleashing a thunderstorm of drums and filthy guitar tones. The doomy riff flowing into a German rap has no business being as unjarring as it is.
The intro of Ausbruck nach innen works well in the Caliban native tongue. The fist-pumping chorus rhythm feels even more effective with Germanic screams. Nichts ist fuer immer introduces more front-and-centre synth & electronic sounds. The lead melody riff is proto-typical of mid 2000’s metalcore and it goes down a treat.
Drummer Patrick Grün gives it his all on Intoleranz, and vocals sound particularly disgusting. Mein Inferno goes as the name suggests – an anthemic, melodic and fast paced metalcore song begging to be played live.
nICHts is a cool track. The chorus is reminiscent of Rammstein with chant-able lines built for screaming to (and by) audiences in a live setting. The dive bombs on the guitar during the main riff are a groovy and unique way to play a verse. As the only original (un-reworked) track on the album, the German lyrics feel much more at home here than anywhere else on Zeitgeister. Soaring chorus vocals and beautiful melodies end the album on a high.
Caliban’s discography spans decades and everything feels like the tight, more modern production has done the songs a favour. While this is positive, the overall compositions on Zeitgeister aren’t that interesting. There are fun parts and catchy hooks (Fueur, zieh’ mit mir has a fantastic chorus) overall I couldn’t help but struggle to want to listen to any song more than once.
Caliban are a band I have to respect as their sound helped carve the way to the more modern sounding bands popular now, but in a somewhat contradictory way to this album’s name, Caliban are chasing a sound that hasn’t seen much innovation in a long while.
There isn’t a huge amount more to say about Zeitgeister. Unless you’re a fan of Caliban and always wondered how their lesser played songs might sound with a Deutschland twist, the audience for this is very niche. Caliban, while being a familiar name, have never been considered one of the greats and this isn’t going to change that. There’s some fun to be heard in Zeitgeister, but it won’t be making many favourite lists this year.
(3 / 5)
