A New Era Of Corruption

<sup>Whitechapel's new album came out sometime last week. Hearing it the first time, it just blew me away, but i thought i'd give it even more time to sink in before if commented on it. I must say, i'm not disappoint at all. Whitechapel are definitely one of a kind. They give the deathcore scene a good name. In the midst of a sea of bands rushing to hop on the deathcore bandwagon, these guys are one of the few bands with substance in a scene plagued by mediocre, generic acts. The critics do not disagree with me.

On the musical side, these guys have definitely matured as songwriters. This album sees them relying alot less on breakdowns to create memorable songs, and instead composing more complete songs, in a sense. Breakdowns are still their strongest point, in my opinion, and this album still has no lack of them. Every whitechapel song has always had one section that you can't help but start headbanging to, or at least nodding your head if you're in public. And more often than not, it's the breakdown. Yeah, breakdowns are often put down as crap the that deathcore bands write when they can't compose better stuff, but this inexperienced sixteen year old begs to differ. Used appropriately, and composed well enough, these brutally down-tuned, chugging rhythmic passages that are the target of criticism of every metal head elitist out there actually serve an actually purpose; In the case of whitechapel, that is to crush your soul to the bowels of hell. That's right, they are that heavy. That's what you get from three 7 strings down tuned to drop A and a vocalist that sounds like satan. However, i just don't think it's possible for the human ear to hear a bass tuned in drop A.



Solos have never been whitechapels strong point, but the few solos that are present in this album are definitely an improvement over the boring solos in This Is Exile. 

Well, whitechapels rhythm section is what really caught me. The drumming is interesting, but not complicated to the point that you begin to feel the guy is just trying to show off. The dude definitely has skills, and is probably one of the better drummers in the scene. It's good to hear how he doesn't rely that much on blast beats too. Everything in moderation, i like. The double bass is not overly triggered nor overly spammed, and it serves it's purpose well, i guess. The triplet-feeling palm muted slaughter + double bass intro to "reprogrammed to hate" just blows me away.

Sure, the album sounds over produced, but if that contributes to the overall heaviness yet clarity of the sound, why not? It's not like they use autotune.

Lyrically, well, i'll let wikipedia speak for me.</sup>

"The concepts and lyrical themes of A New Era of Corruption travel into new boundaries and details where previous Whitechapel albums did not. With The Somatic Defilement being a narrative of Jack the Ripper and This Is Exile being politically and religion-based, A New Era of Corruption is the first Whitechapel release that is not a concept album. It generally focuses on negative themes, for example the song "Devolver" is written within the concept of the devolution in society and how it has crafted "violent and hateful" individuals, while the song "Breeding Violence" was written about the increasing corruption in society during the post-9/11 times, and the song "Murder Sermon" is written about the death of vocalist, Phillip Bozeman's mother."

 I like a band that actually writes about something. 

I shall end my little "review" here, due to my lack of ability to find words to express myself. My words do not do this album justice.