Whitechapel - Whitechapel

Whitechapel doesn’t even need an introduction. They are by far one of the biggest, best, and most brutal deathcore bands in existence. Having released their debut album in the middle of the legendary deathcore explosion of 2007, I’ve been well-aware of Whitechapel’s music since the fucking beginning. Now, with three monstrously brutal albums under their belt, it’s time for Whitechapel to take another step up and create something with a more mature and unique sound than anything they’ve ever thought of creating. I read an interview that reminded me so much of Decrepit Birth when Whitechapel vocalist Phil Bozeman stated that in their first album, they were attempting to create the most brutal music ever. And to be honest, they did a pretty good job of it! But since then, their intentions have drifted away from brutality and more towards quality, but brutality still accurately defines all of Whitechapel’s albums (which isn’t a bad thing).

I think that A New Era of Corruption was Whitechapel’s first experimental and “progressive” record (although I would consider it more experimental than anything else. The outcome was fantastic and the band decided to keep moving in that direction. The new sound that this record puts out is as experimental as A New Era of Corruption, but much less abstract and obviously experimental. This is because a lot of the fusing and progressions being made are the combining of death metal and deathcore (or using more “death” than “core”).

On top of that, guitar solos are being implemented throughout the record; and they sound fucking awesome. I never really thought it would sound good, but really noisy shredding sounds really cool with the angry sound of Whitechapel’s music. Also, there’s a lot more use of melodic and minimally-distorted guitars in the background. Obviously, Whitechapel loved the sound of the really rough and gritty industrial/EBM effects in A New Era of Corruption because they use them in this album. But don’t worry, they don’t overuse it in any way. So along with all that and many other countless new progressions, the musicians themselves have taken some time to improve their skills, especially Phil Bozeman.

Phil’s ability to growl FAST has exploded, listen to the song (Cult)turalist and hear how technical and fast he ends up going and how fucking AMAZING he sounds! Along with that, the range of different pitches he uses has expanded beyond verbal description. His growls have gotten much deeper, and his screams are much more developed and clean (as opposed to the somewhat shitty sounding ones in This is Exile). Phil has also gotten into the habit of using mid-range vocals (somewhat similar to Despised Icon) more than anything else. This isn’t a TOTAL loss because they sound great, but I would like to hear more guttural “Whitechapel growls” on the next record. The drumming is bombarding and technical as always, the guitars are a thousand times better, and the bassist…don’t get me started on him.

To sum it all up: this album is ridiculous. Those of you that have heard it already know exactly what I mean. This album has taken an unrelenting amount of brutality, insanity, and creativity, and mixed it all together to create Whitechapel’s fourth record that gets my score of 18/20, tying with the score of my favorite Whitechapel album, This is Exile. I cannot stress this enough: I would recommend this goddamn album to EVERYONE and ANYONE, especially fans of insane amounts of brutality. 

If you're like me and are disappointed in not being able to enjoy the awesome Whitechapel logo on the new album cover, I took the cover and added in the band logo for all of you: http://kangasphotoshop.weebly.com/uploads/6/9/1/8/6918701/3523215_orig.jpg