First it was the promo CD's, now it is the digital downloads some (if not all) magazines get from the labels. This made me thinking of the labels that used to, and still, bitch about the piracy in music, the mp3 downloads etc. And now they use it for their own good, avoiding money that was once spent in printing promo CD's and sending them to media partners. Anyway, that's a big and weird discussion that doesn't belong here...

The German Metalcore heroes have become one of the scene's favorites after high quality for the genre albums like Shadow Hearts and The Opposite From Within. With a brand new contract with Century Media, everyone was expecting the band's new step, and here it is. Say Hello To Tragedy is going to hit the stores in late August and Metalcore fans are already impatiently waiting for its release. I admit that CALIBAN have something special in their music. Or may I say had?

CALIBAN once had something that made them differ from the rest of the Metalcore scene; they were one of its leaders dare I say. It seems though that the something we are talking about has been lost. The songs have become typical, you actually know what is going to happen next in each song, and the whole atmosphere is not the one CALIBAN used to have. What is wrong? Even though I am not a Metalcore fan, CALIBAN was always one of the few exceptions that would send shivers down my spine with its well worked brutal/clean vocals combination, the killer beatdown stuff and the relentlessly shredding guitars. The fact is Say Hello To Tragedy seems unable to match the band's great past. Hmmm, uninspired is not the right word to describe it, but it surely isn't able to make me move my head, sing along the clean melodic - once catchy - choruses or air drum with Grun's bone crushing drumming. I guess it all started after The Opposite From Within, when the single CD releases started to become more than the full-length ones.

Good, but not good enough for the level of this band. I hope they manage to get back on track soon, or one more weak album could cost a lot to these guys. It is really a pity to see such bands becoming weaker as time goes by and CALIBAN should not be one of them.