Whitechapel- This is exile
Job for a cowboy and All shall perish lead the way with Deathcore and you may want to lump Whitechapel behind them. After 2007’s “Somatic Defilement”, you probably rate them second-class to JFACB and ASP. “Somatic Defilement” was a lack lustre release at best of times, but showed potential nether less. With “This is exile” you find that Whitechapel have grown musically and have matured into an all-conquering death and grind monster.
All the way, from Knoxville, Tennessee Whitechapel have only been around since 2006 and have already scored a deal with the deathcore friendly Metal Blade records. Named after London’s infamous borough, where Jack the Ripper committed his grizzly deeds you can imagine the lyrical content that Whitechapel produce, yet with “This is exile”, they have left behind the Cannibal Corpse lyrics in favour of a pure misanthropic direction. Okay, so they aren’t going to set the world ablaze with originality, theirs a lot of At the Gates, (Slaughter of the soul era), Death and Aborted in there, but what they do is write solid songs, with a genuine musical talent that show’s their conviction.
Opener “Father of lies” sets the ground for a roaring eleven tracks of misanthropic hate, which leads to the standout title track “This is exile”, opening their full bag of tricks to let forth their technical assault, showing how much they have improved since their first album. The Production on this album is excellent, even with three (yes THREE!) Guitar players they all seem to find a place in the mix. It is typical these days that the bass is subsonic and is more of a gut feeling then a sound, but it is brought up in the mix, at points for added effect. I known that a lot of deathmetal and grind purist wont like Whitechapel mainly because they are tagged “deathcore”, also because of the breakdowns and they’ll moan because it’s to polished and that’s not the way it should be, but If you exclude bands like Whitechapel for any of the above reasons, then you are a fool. Because you will be missing out on some damn finely crafted, skull cracking, brain splattering, ear splitting metal, face grinding metal.