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Shed your tear! - 95%
If you have listened to Heaven Shall Burn and Caliban before you should expect something good coming up from this split album. And if you’ve never heard anything from both bands, you’ll not be disappointed! In some cases it’s really hard to release a split, specially because the tracks could just “don’t fit” (this is not a big issue if both bands are good, but usually fitting songs are better to listen to), but this is far a problem in “The Split Program II”. Of course the difference between the two bands is remarkable and the recording and mixing are kind of different, but this doesn’t affect at all the quality of the album. Actually the well constructed reefs and the “heart singing” style put these bands more close together than anything else could set them apart.
As expected, Heaven Shall Burn put some classical stuff among the songs that helps a lot to create a god atmosphere for the subsequent aggressive screams and heavy low tone reefs. All songs follow almost the same construction type that made them famous for, with relatively slow tunings among fast catches and some melodic constructions. If you have never listen to the bands that they do the covers, don’t mind about it… these songs perfectly sounds like original Heaven Shall Burn ones (not like the more recent one that they’ve released in Invictus). There’s one thing that will certainly get your attention: the vocals mixing. In some parts of the songs (especially in the beginning) you can notice that they have doubled the recording of the voice, and put a little delay in one of them, so you actually listen two voices singing exactly the same thing. They have used this strategy in many albums and the result is especially good in this one: tons of brutality! Finally, the first two songs of this album would become classic songs of the band nowadays… I guarantee that even the most stone heart could “shed a tear” listening to it!
Caliban sounds more like their old stuff. Some parts even resembles their debut album “vent”, with some strictly metalcore power, but of course they added some more melodic stuff (and they have been adding this more and more over the time). The songs are really fast and powerful, and the vocals are aggressive in the right size. Not so many break downs as they do nowadays, but you should expect some rhythm changes.
A “should listen to and should have it in your collection” album featuring two great bands, you’ll not be disappointed.
Musical equivalent of being kicked in the chest - 90%
This split is amazingly heavy, it just crushes and destroys. The riffs have obviously been down-tuned a bit, but when it sounds this heavy, its no problem at all.
The second split from famed German Metalcore masters, Heaven Shall Burn and Caliban, this sequel is the victor as the production makes it actually listenable this time around. That's my one gripe with the early work from Caliban and Heaven Shall Burn, the production is god awful, like basement demo's from the early 90's.
Heaven Shall Burn has the first at bat on this split and they pick up right where 'Antigone' left off. More Melodic Death with crushing core influences, but this sounds a bit more raw than Antigone, but also features another breath taking instrumental peice like Antigone had. It has the same theme melody as the others so it sounds like a sequel, but just as, if not more beautiful than than it's predecessors. Out of five songs, Heaven Shall Burn scores with high marks on three of them, the other two, dont have the force of the others. 3/5
Recomended Listening: Unleash Enlightinment, No One Will Shed a Tear, Downfall of Christ.
Caliban in my opinion wins the split, as they've managed to out-crush one of Metal's heaviest bands which is a feat to say the least. Also, aside from the lead off, Caliban seemed to have gone back to their classic sound, which the fans would like as they've criticized the band for being Killswitch Engages copycats. Caliban does similar to what Heaven Shall Burn does, lay melody down while at the same time crushing you with rhythm and force. They also lay down some haunting acoustic work which gives them even more points. Clean vocals only appear in one song on this split, the rest is chest collapsing metalcore from the country that does it best: Germany! 5/5
Recomended Listening: All tracks.
Caliban is the victor of this round!