Review of Whitechapel's self-titled

1. Make It Bleed

2. Hate Creation

3.(Cult)uralist

4. I, Dementia

5. Section 8

6. Faces

7. Dead Silence

8. The Night Remains

9. Devoid

10. Possibilities of an Impossible Existence

Having spent several years lauded as one of the frontrunners in their genre, in 2012 Whitechapel stand as a defining force in contemporary heavy music. Building dramatically on the trademarked bludgeon of their first three releases, with Whitechapel the Tennessean sextet have inarguably delivered their most intense, dynamic, and downright hostile record to date. Drenched in atmospheric darkness, the record is also rife with gripping melodies that drag the listener in to the tumult, willing or otherwise, and across its ten tracks it is infused with an emotional depth that pointedly separates the band from the plethora of two-dimensional mosh-starters that have sprung up in their wake. "These songs are some of the best material we have released to date, and the whole vibe of the record compelled us to self-title it," states guitarist Alex Wade. "With every record we strive for something different – we're always going to stay true to what Whitechapel is, but we want to evolve and do something that is fresh and engaging both for ourselves and for the people who support us."

I must say that this album was better than I was expecting. To start the album we have Make It Bleed, which starts with a piano intro. I liked the melodic riff at the beginning and much of this song is fast paced plus the solo is a nice touch. The next song, Hate Creation is pretty much just your heavy, fast pounding riffs but the part that caught my eye the most was the slow bit. Whitechapel really grabbed my attention with (Cult)uralist with its awesome groove that it has, I really liked the chugging and the riff at the beginning. I, Dementia keeps my attention with the groove behind it as well and while I did like the intro I kind of disliked the electronic sounds. Section 8 was on the Recorrupted album for those of you that remember that release. I don’t really like how this song flowed until the fast paced stuff kicks in, the breakdown near the beginning was just so boring. The breakdown in the end was interesting with the guitars, which made up for the one in the beginning. Things get more in your face with the song Faces, funnily enough. This song is very heavy and hardly gives room to breath with out fast and heavy it is for the most part. Dead Silence is very well rounded with its mixture of melodic and heavy feels and the outro of this song is an acoustic diddle which leads into The Night Remains. Again, Whitechapel pulled something out of their bag of tricks that I did not know they had them in them. The Night Remains brought me dark and black riffs that I hear when listening to black metal bands, when it comes from a band like Whitechapel it turns my head. Devoid is just a piano intro which leads into a breakdown and ends with a melodic bit, it was an alright instrumental. The last song Possibilities of an Impossible Existence is really beefy on the bass and also has the best mixture of heaviness, chugging, and melodic riffs. The album ends with a nice piano piece.

Not being too much of Whitechapel fan, I did enjoy this album. My three favourite songs are definitely (Cult)uralist, I, Dementia, Face, and The Night Remains. The only thing that really bugged me was how much crash symbol there was. I’ve never heard it used repeatedly for so long ever, but I guess that’s just the hardcore element of the band coming through. All in all this album is good and if you like Whitechapel I recommend picking this up