Caliban vs Heaven Shall Burn – “The Split Program II”
This split album features recordings from 2005 from both bands. Heaven Shall Burn features “Unleash Enlightment,” “No One Will Shed a Tear,” “Nyfaedd Von,” If This a Man,” “Downfall of Christ,” and “Destroy Fascism.” Heaven Shall Burn sounds heavily influenced by At the Gates, especially in the vocal department. The music is melodic thrash. I guess this is supposed to be hardcore, but I don’t hear that. The guitars are pretty downtuned. Overall, the material is pretty catchy, though I don’t hear the genius that other people hear. It’s good, not great. It’s pretty aggressive and heavy, actually, but not anything particularly overwhelming. The speed is fast and thrashy, with the breakdown parts. There are no clean singing parts, only screechy growling.
Caliban contributes “The Revenge,” “Arena of Concealment,” “One Day,” “A Summer Dream” and “One More Lie.” Caliban is more hardcore. The thrashy riffs are overcome with the hardcore notes and more breakdowns. In addition, the harsh vocals are combined with clean singing that sounds like Papa Roach to me. The music is more melodic and more memorable than the other band, but they also sound more metalcore. In truth, this is pretty good stuff, pretty catchy. It’s just that there are a million metalcore bands in 2005 and many, many of them are “pretty good.”