Artist: Whitechapel
Album: A New Era of Corruption
Genre: Deathcore
Label: Metal Blade

From the depths of the modern day craze that is deathcore, comes Whitechapel, a band that has served as a poster child and have found themselves towards the forefront of the trend. They prevailed over their contemporaries and paved the way to success with their first two albums, The Somatic Defilement and This is Exile.Despite their favorable following, they were affixed to being one of countless acts attempting to break the mold of a genre that’s seemingly heading towards an impending doom. In the midst of memorable moments, their use of superfluous core elements ultimately fell into the plague of conformity but their substantial amount of supporters within the metal community proved they got away with their identity crisis. However, you can only go so long before the downfalls catch up and that reigns true on their third studio album, A New Era of Corruption.

From the gate, their latest offering blasts with an uncompromising intensity and doesn’t let up until the album concludes. Their effort displays a more mature songwriting approach, more so on a lyrical spectrum. Their past stereotypical misogynistic message have been further laid to rest but they still focus their attention towards negative themes. Instead of illustrating morbid death scenarios into their lyrics they now expose a deeper side and hit on topics like the ignorance in today’s society and questioning self worth. This is especially evident on “Breeding Violence,” as vocalist Phil Bozeman anguishingly questions, “Nameless, no family to call my own. Helpless, nobody to save me now. Could there be light beyond this hell I call home?”

As their lyrical craft takes proverbial strides forward, their musical endeavors have taken a side step. It doesn’t matter how you slice it, A New Era of Corruption is inevitably a deathcore album and that stigma alone is enough to make elitist metalheads turn their backs in shame. Nevertheless, Whitechapel are known for their brutal disposition, three-guitar assault and their ability to expand beyond the typical chug/blast/breakdown-laden arrangements lesser deathcore acts have been fixated with. On their newest release their creative aspects have been substituted with a sense of comfort and each song seems to be a race to a breakdown. “Devolver,” kicks things off with dirty chugging layered under blast beats and steadfast riffs. The track grazes through numerous tempo changes as it interweaves melodic death metal passages with technical, grind elements. Bringing the aforementioned breakdown-fest to full effect, “The Darkest Day of Man,” is littered with menacing grooves and makes the whole song sound feel like a breakdown. But you know you’re doing something right when vocalist Chino Moreno of the Deftones makes a quest appearance on your album and his contribution on “Reprogrammed to Hate,” makes it rightfully the crowning gem of the collection. The weighty riffs and tasteful vocal additions are remarkably compelling that the other tracks fail to measure up to it.

There is impeccable promise from the first couple songs, but after these have finished the song writing on rest of the album, more often than not, charter into uninspired territory. Rather than centering their attention on their respectable death metal advancements they mask their true talent with over-saturated deathcore trends. It becomes clear that songs as a whole don’t shine as much as brief moments do. An example of this is on, “End of Flesh,” when a dynamic shift is taken during an acoustic section but the remainder of the song skips by with nothing too intriguing.

Whitechapel have sharped their craft of down-tuned bludgeon, guitar melodicism, earth-shattering versatile vocals, and relentless maelstrom but their progression isn’t enough to maintain their usual limelight. There are a few notable features going for this release but they rarely build upon their potential. A New Era of Corruption may not be the breakthrough needed to encourage naysayers to think twice about their trepidation for the deathcore movement but there’s enough musical conviction that the fans will still embrace it.

Score: 5/10
Review written by: Nerissa Judd

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James Shotwell

James Shotwell is the founder of Under The Gun Review. He loves writing about music and movies almost as much as he loves his two fat cats. He's also the co-founder of Antique Records and the Marketing Coordinator for Haulix. You should probably follow him on Twitter.

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