ALBUM REVIEW: Zeitgeister – Caliban

It’s easy to overlook CALIBAN‘s importance in the history of metalcore. They’ve been active since 1997 and were waving the flag for breakdowns before KILLSWITCH ENGAGE were even a glint in Adam Dutkiewicz’s eye. However, despite a brief burst of momentum in 2004 when their fourth album came out on Roadrunner Records, they’ve always been more popular in their native Germany than the English-speaking world.

It’s not surprising then that they’d eventually release an album entirely in their native language. There’s been German songs on their past few records, but Zeitgeister is the first to exclude English lyrics altogether. It makes for an interesting curio in their discography, but the truth is it isn’t an essential CALIBAN release. Zeitgeister isn’t an original, it’s a remake.

Aside from the brief instrumental introduction and one newbie at the end, Zeitgeister consists entirely of re-worked versions of older tracks. To their credit, they’ve mostly gone for deep cuts rather than established favourites. The likes of Nothing Is Forever and Paralyzed are ignored and fresh takes on Tyranny Of Small Misery and All I Gave get aired instead. It also looks like they’ve switched up the lyrical content; you don’t need Duolingo to know that Mein Inferno is not a direct translation of My Little Secret. However, despite all this, Zeitgeister can’t escape feeling familiar.

On the plus side, they have made a noticeable effort to make this as fresh as they can. The songs certainly resemble their former selves, but there are differences. Some of the choruses are laid out differently and there’s a couple of curveballs thrown in. Matthias Tamath from NASTY shows up on Trauma to perform the spoken-word verse, while Herz bears such little resemblance to I Will Never Let You Down that it almost feels completely new.  It also sounds great; the modern production values make the old breakdowns hit hard, even if some of the dirt has been washed off.

However, CALIBAN‘s recent run of albums have been terrific and this doesn’t measure up. In the wake of Ghost Empire, Gravity and Elements, Zeitgeister is a let down. It’s fine, there’s nothing wrong with Zeitgeister, but this is more of a love-letter to their fans than a ‘proper’ album. For non-German-speakers like us, it’s all a bit inconsequential; it’ll get played a few times and then abandoned in favour of the original versions. Please bear in mind though, we are not the target audience and CALIBAN die-hards living in Berlin, Frankfurt and Dusseldorf would almost certainly give it a higher score.

Rating: 5/10

Zeitgeister is set for release on May 14th via Century Media Records.

Like CALIBAN on Facebook.