Album Review: Our Endless War by Whitechapel

Whitechapel's new logo proved controversial amongst fans when the band added a simple block letter take on the name to their echelon. Though the band's clarification that they weren't getting rid of their "deathcore" logo should have appeased sullen supporters, the decision's importance is in the underlying meaning; their choice to utilize a cleaner, more mature-looking logo is indicative of a deeper shift in the band: a breaking free from any stylistic chains to a specific subgenre.Early material indicated an allegiance to deathcore, and certain parts seemed written to fit that mould. Over their five albums, they have increasingly allowed the songs to dictate their content and flow, rather than a quota for brutality.

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Looking to shake listeners out of the safety and comfort of complacency, Whitechapel declare war on what they see as a doomed civilization on their fifth album, Our Endless War. Armed with an arsenal of punishing riffs and guttural screams, the bandmembers lash out against modern society with a visceral tirade of seething, unfiltered hate, and no one is safe from their terrible anger. On the forward-looking "Worship the Digital Age," the band go on the warpath against the media and their constant intrusion into our lives.

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Tennessee's Whitechapel have always had the ambition to stand above the deathcore pack, and they've long been one of the genre's leaders. While the band are still struggling to really emerge with an identity on their fifth album, they are moving in the right direction. Take "The Saw Is The Law," a tune so filled with staccato blasts of groove and haunting slow-burn lead work over repetitive grooves that it threatens to just be a Meshuggah clone, but the scatting nü-metal vocals (work with me here) give the song personality.

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