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CALIGARI  self-titled  CD   (Init)   7.98


Out of all of the old and new Init releases that we just got in stock, their 2002 album from Caligari is one of the most distinctive. The self-titled debut from this Sioux Falls based band has that manic, metallic hardcore sound in the vein of Botch and Converge, with lots of chaotic, math-damaged fretboard freakout and punishing chug riffs, but Caligari also inject some cool psychedelic effects and electronic textures into the songs that make their spacey, progressive metalcore stand out. Brutal distorted vocals are at times run through some kind of filtering effect that turns them into a fluttering cybernetic roar, and most of the songs juxtapose these cool, spacey passages of delayed guitar and windswept melody against the bouts of heavier riffage. This was the only thing that Caligari ever put out, and the band featured members of The Blinding Light, whose slurred slo-mo Slayer violence can be found on a smokin' out-of-print 7" from Init that we just got a few final

copies of this week, and I can hear some of that Great Plains Slayer worship in Caligari's music too, the evil, discordant solos, the ripping, rippling blasts of double bass drumming...it's a sound that seems to be specific to the metalcore scene of the Dakotas, for whatever reason. Yeah, this is definitely one of the coolest releases from this scene, a textured space-metalcore epic, like a heavier Slayerized version of Old Man Gloom's Seminar II, or a more rabid Cave In circa 1998 with even more FX fuckery going on. For real, these guys just seem to fuck with the electronics more and more heavily with each subsequent song on this disc, adding noisy distorted soundscapes and drenching the guitars in delay and a host of other digital effects - it's completely kicking my ass. Obviously, Caligari aren't going to convert anybody that loathed the metallic hardcore sound to begin with, but for those of us that dug the first wave of metallic hardcore and have been looking

for bands that breathe fresh air (and a really stoned quotient of electronic frippery) into the sound, this is a really rad album.


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