Label: Coyote Records
Date: February 5th, 2024
Another band coming from Valparaiso (and another one my good buddy plays in) who released stuff their stuff not too log time ago calls Hail Caligula. But “Mortiis Hominum” is the very fresh one – its debut took place this month – to be precise February, the 5th. Anyways, Hail Caligula is younger ensemble then Infernal Thorns and was born 2010 in the same city – Valparaiso. Of course they’re friends with each other and there’s nothing strange in fact Manuel of Hail Caligula recorded in his own studio drums for Infernal Thorns as well. Back to Hail Caligula itself, guys has only one more full-length (“Bacchanalia Sanguis”) released 2017 and several other stuff. I won’t name them all here. That’s because of two reasons. The first one is review is not a very accurate place to do that (it’s first of all about just reviewed stuff). And the second one is to “force you” to check it out by yourselves.
And that’s it about the history of the ensemble! This is a review and not a place to write their whole and full detailed biography. So if you’ll be interested in getting to know something more about it, then just contact them. And I’ll concentrate on the most important thing here – music itself. “Mortiis…” contains nine tracks and they take not too much then stuff I reviewed before. Total time is twenty five minutes and nineteen seconds. So you already know guys play brutal as hell and aren’t able to try and even want to make their creativity complicated even in minimal grade. They just spread unlimited brutality. Their music has quite a lot to do with grindcore, which of course doesn’t mean you’ll not find some sophisticated technique. Actually this is very technical stuff in my opinion! And actually you’d have to be deaf as a stone to not be able to recognize it! It takes all instruments for sure, but this is the best hearable in guitar parts what’s natural thing in such music. Anyways, tempo is variable as well, mostly middle or even, as on death metal, quite slow one, but from time to time, thanks to drumming and somehow vocals , it turns to even hyper-fast one. Anyways, the music we have here is very intensive. Riffs are short and broken just like they should be. Both they and drumming change the whole time. Anyways, there’s not even an entire second when the listener can take a rest. I mean, moments where you have at least a little less brutality in music. What I also like is the fact that the vocals sound naturally brutal. You know, I didn’t notice even signs of some effects and stuff like that – contrary to many, I somehow feel more and more, other ensembles who play such music. Shortly after listening to “Mortiis…” I had to force myself to sit calmly in front of the computer and to not make one man mosh! Whole album contains nine tracks and some of songs have short intros before them, intros taken from some gore or at least horror movies. By the way, I have feeling on their gigs is as sick as fuck and mosh can survive only though guys I wish at least once in my life I was one of them, even if in my age it could probably finished with hospitalization. But who the hell actually cares!
To sum it up, if you’re such a freak I am, then you shouldn’t think any second more about what to do and just grab this stuff! What is really good news for as old school fanatics as me is the fact Coyote Records didn’t release it only in digital form, but this is available also on CD. So, as you can see, there’s something nice for everyone. I know younger generations are, with some expectations, not so much about physical copies, so that’s a kind of blessing for them. There’s a possibility to get “Mortiis…” as MP3. And the older or just pure old school maniacs will have the possibility to take a look at the booklet and enjoy the CD as well. Anyways, I think this is a huge plus nowadays you can check out stuff first, before you’ll spend your money on CDs or so. Well, as for me it was always enough to read reviews to decide and I was never disappointed then, but…
