I first heard Caliban way back in 2005 when their song The Beloved And The Hatred was getting a lot of playtime on MTV2, Fuse, and the like. It sounded to me like a very generic, albeit catchy, metalcore song that was loaded with breakdowns and clean vocals and really went nowhere. I had heard some of their older material and found it better, but ultimately it was not good enough to make me a fan. So here we are in 2009 which sees the German band releasing their sixth studio album, Say Hello To Tragedy. The album title itself didn't hold much promise for me because it sounds like just another title for average, generic metalcore. Unfortunately that's what this album is going to give you.

The first song, 24 Years, sets down a pretty quick pace with some distorted, modern sounding riffs that are pretty generic. Then the vocals come in and I'm even more unimpressed. Andreas Dorner's voice really does not stand out at all to me. The song also follows a pretty stand verse-chorus and then goes into various breakdowns with clean vocals interspersed among them. Parts of it are catchy, but overall it doesn't give me a good feeling about the album as this has all been done before, and by better bands. Love Song starts out as equally unimpressive, although the vocals do change somewhat throughout the song to give them a bit more character. This is another fast song as well, with the obligatory breakdowns thrown in every once in awhile. Caliban's Revenge begins with some nondescript guitar distortion and effects, then a pretty big riff comes in to start the song out. This does give the song a feeling of being somewhat epic, as do the growls from Dorner. However, the clean singing in the chorus does not impress me, and it just doesn't seem to fit. The riffs in the song are pretty catchy, albeit simple. If there were some guitar solos in this song, I would consider it quite good. I like the riffs that begin End This Sickness, even though they are simple they at least have some energy in them. The vocals I don't care for as much, the high pitched growls just don't do it for me. Walk Like The Dead is also a pretty catchy song, but again it's the vocals that I really don’t like. The lack of anything complex makes the songs somewhat dull, but it doesn’t sound bad. Towards the end of Liar it sounds like the vocals have been lifted from a Cynic album, they have been processed in almost the same way from what I can hear. I'm not sure what they were going for there. Unleash Your Voice actually starts out with a quick and interesting riff that gets my attention. The growled vocals don't bother me that much, it's the clean singing again that really doesn't work for me in the vocal department. Other than that the song continues with the same riffs over and over, which aren't bad but get worn out after a few minutes.

Overall this album is pretty dull, it has some good moments, but they are only moments. There are too many really great metalcore bands out there for this to be considered good. This band apparently once had potential in their early days, but it now seems that they have decided to write the bland, commercial style of metalcore instead of something resembling actual art. This album is only for the dedicated (or delusional) fan and even then it is not recommended.