Review Summary: Whitechapel shows they could very well be a standout in their genre.
Deathcore. Breakdowns. The two terms seem married as one. The genre itself is wrought with many unoriginal bands, "scene kids" and a load of down-tuned chugging. Yet Whitechapel, with A New Era of Corruption, seems to have risen above the general drudgery that occurs in Deathcore. Furthermore, they seem to do so whilst sitting among the top bands in the genre. When somebody mentions Deathcore, Whitechapel is usually close to follow. It's sort of an atypical thing for a commonly-known band to diverge their sound . . . but this isn't an ordinary Deathcore album.
We begin with
Devolver. Within a minute, we're greeted by two guitars playing small leads in harmony. It isn't anything earth-shattering, but amidst the chugs and Phil Bozeman's absolutely pounding vocals, it's clear that this album isn't going to contain an endless stream of breakdowns like their previous work. Don't get me wrong, there are more than enough breakdowns to please the general Deathcore crowd, but they don't seem to be the focus of this band's musical style again. At the end of Devolver, it seems the listener has experienced a little more "death" than "core". Contrary to the name of this song, the album does not devolve from this point on -- it does the opposite. Again, in
Breeding Violence we're greeted by some guitar leads that are moving further away from constant chugs. The dual guitars blend perfectly with the rest of the music. Later in the CD, we meet something even more atypical of Deathcore: Acoustic interludes. Interludes. Acoustic. Acoustic Deathcore? That sounds like "Gay Republican". Well, it works and it works well.
End of Flesh contains a piece no longer than 15 seconds where all three guitarists play a mixture of strumming and counterpoint leads, but the 15 seconds works perfectly with the music. The song itself is also full of melodic, yes, melodic parts amidst the chugs and breakdowns. This isn't the next
In the Shadow of our Pale Companion by any means, but it's clearly a divergent song that straight up rocks.
Moving away from the musical instruments, the vocals on this album are probably its strongest point. Phil Bozeman is an astonishing Death Metal vocalist. One thing that's talked about is Chino Moreno's guest performance in
Reprogrammed to Hate. Moreno and Bozeman blend perfectly. The final scream at the end of Moreno's part is most definitely memorable. On the other songs, Bozeman is deep, guttural, powerful, and above all else -- intelligible. You'll find no pig squeals here, hiding crap lyrics. His lyrics have quality and you can understand them. That alone is worthy of some sort of "Deathcore award" for being able to understand what the hell is being so angrily screamed about.
All good things aside, this album is not without its flaws. Because this is a Deathcore album, it's got breakdowns. Lots of 'em. We're not talking
Chelsea Grin - status here, but it's got enough to please the scene kids -- and that's too many. I don't mind a good breakdown here and there, but more than one per song is too many. I realize that breakdowns are a firm ground in Deathcore that a lot of the music is based around, but overindulging leads to music that doesn't vary. If you're not taken on a journey through an album, then something is wrong, and that is what this album suffers from. There are some songs here that definitely feel like they belong on another, better album(Devolver, Reprogrammed to Hate, End of Flesh, Unnerving, Single File to Dehumanization), but the rest of the songs feel like they're more filler than anything else. They're not necessarily bad by any means, but they seem to plant Whitechapel in one place the whole album.
So, in conclusion, this album is pretty good. It's certainly not Deathcore's
Blackwater Park, but it's showing serious signs of musical maturity. If they evolve their sound even more with their next release, I expect Whitechapel to start and draw fans from other subgenres of Metal.
