Review: Calliophis “Cor Serpentis”

Calliophis “Cor Serpentis”
Solitude productions

The roots of this band are in east part of German city Chemnitz. But its base moved to the most populous city of Saxony – Leipzig. It has been a trade city since at least the Early Middle Ages (endowed with city and market privileges in 1165 by Otto the Rich). However, the very first time when it was documented took place in 1015: in chronicles of Bishop Thietmar of Merseburg as “urbs Libzi”.

Anyway, there live something like 600.000 people in Leipzig and it plays important role on several fields. For us the biggest meaning has music, of course. And here the city has reasons to be proud of. CALLIOPHIS was born in 2006 after the demise of DISPBEDIENCE. In fact guys had some period of non-existence between 2012 and 2015, but in meantime they were very active on the scene. It was first of all about playing gigs. Ensemble participated also on several thematic compilations and released debut album ‘Doomsday’ in 2008.

We had to wait long nine years for second one. So we can say that our German friends debut once again. I mean, nine years is really long period and I’m afraid that many people just forgot them (even if they played shows) or even had no chance to get know them earlier. And let’s be honest that these six long songs (they take more than one hour) containing on ‘Cor Serpentis’ definitely are worth of attention. Of course there’s one condition: you must like Death/Doom Metal.

Music is mostly in slow tempo, has a lot of crushing, road-roller element, but is brutal in its way, too. Guitars tuning is maximal high level of course. Riffs crush with their heaviness what is intensified by deep, grave growling of Thomas. But guitars track isn’t monotonous at all. Rules of the genre are like they’re and that’s why you shouldn’t expect some sophisticated technical displays. But believe me that Mathias and Martin play variable and there’re some interesting tricks. Florian beats slowly – just like it should be in this music genre. You can hear in that many passages, cymbals and so on what unfortunately isn’t characteristic for some bands playing Death/Doom. At least I had this questionable pleasure to listen to such acts.

To sum it up and cut long story short, this is classic Death/Doom. You can find some strong influences of this or another band here, but in the same time Germans play own music, if you know what I mean. In my opinion CALLOPHIS is another proof that saying “German quality” isn’t only about products of local industry in several branches.