Whitechapel
Whitechapel
Release Date: Jun 19, 2012
Genre(s): Pop/Rock, Heavy Metal
Record label: Metal Blade
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Album Review: Whitechapel by Whitechapel
Fantastic, Based on 4 Critics
Based on rating 9/10
Death metal like you've never heard. An exceptional album from Whitechapel. Refusing to let the death metal genre dampen their spirits, Tennessee’s Whitechapel offer up their fourth offering of devastating riffs, punishing vocals, and, dare we say, borderline danceable death metal. Opener ‘Make It Bleed’ begins with a false promise of gentle instrumentation, but that is soon dispelled with a mammoth guitar throttling and deathly howls from frontman Phil Bozeman.
Opinion: Excellent
There really needs to be a name for bands that sidestep the sophomore slump only to stumble on their subsequent album. Whitechapel would fit this description perfectly. After a simple, brutal debut that hinted at greater things to come, the group capitalized on their promise and made one of deathcore's finest albums with This is Exile. However, the follow-up, A New Era of Corruption, sounded tired and uninspired.
Opinion: Very Good
A deathcore band that often feels more "death" than "core," Whitechapel channel a sonic maelstrom of destruction on their eponymous fourth album, Whitechapel. Whitechapel is one of the few bands in the genre willing to break away from the tired riff-breakdown-rinse-repeat cycle in favor a more chaotic style that seems to throw things at you from every direction without giving you time to properly adjust. Their self-titled effort also marks the album debut of their new drummer, Ben Harclerode, who slots into the band seamlessly with drumming that's as ferocious as it is technically dazzling.
Opinion: Very Good
Piano/synth and Ratt riff intro to a guttural, machine-gun roar ("Make It Bleed"), tribal swagger ("I, Dementia"), and Eastern end accents ("Dead Silence"). The fourth full-length from this Knoxville, Tenn., death metal sextet expands detailing from previous bruiser A New Era of Corruption. Looser, less right-angle technical, Whitechapel deals bone-breakers like "Section 8," one-upped by the succeeding "Faces" ("erase your words and die"), before blaring blindly toward the end, though the bleeding never stops.
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