#whitechapel — Public Fediverse posts

Whitechapel are celebrating 20 years of brutality with a massive North American headlining tour this fall with Chelsea Grin, The Acacia Strain, and Netherwalker

Details: https://metalinsider.net/touring/whitechapel-announce-20th-anniversary-north-american-2026-fall-tour

#Whitechapel #ChelseaGrin #TheAcaciaStrain #Netherwalker #MetalTour

Deux amis ratent leur correspondance à Londres et se retrouvent dans les ruelles de Whitechapel. Ce qui commence comme une escale érotique et complice bascule dans l'horreur la plus sombre.

Jack l'Éventreur n'a jamais vraiment quitté ses rues.

⚠️ Contenu 15+ : érotisme et horreur graphique.
📖 Sur #Panodyssey ou #Substack

https://lien.gabrieldax.fr/5

#Horreur #Érotisme #JackLÉventreur #Whitechapel #Fiction #GabrielDax #Nouvelles #Mastolivre

Deux amis ratent leur correspondance à Londres et se retrouvent dans les ruelles de Whitechapel. Ce qui commence comme une escale érotique et complice bascule dans l'horreur la plus sombre.

Jack l'Éventreur n'a jamais vraiment quitté ses rues.

⚠️ Contenu 15+ : érotisme et horreur graphique.
📖 Sur #Panodyssey ou #Substack

https://lien.gabrieldax.fr/5

#Horreur #Érotisme #JackLÉventreur #Whitechapel #Fiction #GabrielDax #Nouvelles #Mastolivre

Deux amis ratent leur correspondance à Londres et se retrouvent dans les ruelles de Whitechapel. Ce qui commence comme une escale érotique et complice bascule dans l'horreur la plus sombre.

Jack l'Éventreur n'a jamais vraiment quitté ses rues.

⚠️ Contenu 15+ : érotisme et horreur graphique.
📖 Sur #Panodyssey ou #Substack

https://lien.gabrieldax.fr/5

#Horreur #Érotisme #JackLÉventreur #Whitechapel #Fiction #GabrielDax #Nouvelles #Mastolivre

Deux amis ratent leur correspondance à Londres et se retrouvent dans les ruelles de Whitechapel. Ce qui commence comme une escale érotique et complice bascule dans l'horreur la plus sombre.

Jack l'Éventreur n'a jamais vraiment quitté ses rues.

⚠️ Contenu 15+ : érotisme et horreur graphique.
📖 Sur #Panodyssey ou #Substack

https://lien.gabrieldax.fr/5

#Horreur #Érotisme #JackLÉventreur #Whitechapel #Fiction #GabrielDax #Nouvelles #Mastolivre

Deux amis ratent leur correspondance à Londres et se retrouvent dans les ruelles de Whitechapel. Ce qui commence comme une escale érotique et complice bascule dans l'horreur la plus sombre.

Jack l'Éventreur n'a jamais vraiment quitté ses rues.

⚠️ Contenu 15+ : érotisme et horreur graphique.
📖 Sur #Panodyssey ou #Substack

https://lien.gabrieldax.fr/5

#Horreur #Érotisme #JackLÉventreur #Whitechapel #Fiction #GabrielDax #Nouvelles #Mastolivre

https://www.europesays.com/at/37584/ Whitechapel kommen Anfang 2027 mit Sylosis auf Europatournee #200StabWounds #2027 #AT #Austria #Entertainment #Europatour #Music #Musik #Österreich #Sylosis #TribalGaze #Unterhaltung #Whitechapel

https://www.europesays.com/fi/189618/ Whitechapel saapuu Suomeen helmikuussa 2027 #200StabWounds #Entertainment #FI #Finland #Finnish #Suomi #sylosis #TribalGaze #viihde #whitechapel

New post: Whitechapel and Sylosis team up for massive 2027 UK and Ireland co-headline tour https://moshville.co.uk/news/tours/2026/03/whitechapel-and-sylosis-team-up-for-massive-2027-uk-and-ireland-co-headline-tour/ #Sylosis #Whitechapel

https://www.europesays.com/fi/178810/ Deathcoren kuningaskiertue saapui Suomeen – Lorna Shore kumppaneineen Helsingin Jäähallilla #Entertainment #FI #Finland #Finnish #Humanity'sLastBreath #JäähalliHelsinki #LornaShore #ShadowOfIntent #Suomi #viihde #whitechapel

https://www.europesays.com/uk/785105/ 'This is a Muslim area': Moment Met Police officer confronted as she defends preacher – London Evening Standard #FreedomOfSpeech #Muslim #News #PoliceOfficer #Preacher #UK #UnitedKingdom #Whitechapel

I've just created an 'animated' video to visualise my short story, Advantagement. It's not my day job. Be nice. 🧐🫠
https://ridleypark.blog/2026/02/20/advantagement-visualised/?utm_source=masto&utm_medium=social
#philosophy #politics #society #humancondition #video #language #communication #animation #shortstory #writing #belgravia #classroles #genderroles #history #Whitechapel #London

I've just created an 'animated' video to visualise my short story, Advantagement. It's not my day job. Be nice. 🧐🫠
https://ridleypark.blog/2026/02/20/advantagement-visualised/?utm_source=masto&utm_medium=social
#philosophy #politics #society #humancondition #video #language #communication #animation #shortstory #writing #belgravia #classroles #genderroles #history #Whitechapel #London

https://www.europesays.com/ie/342250/ Phasma – Purgatory Review | Angry Metal Guy #2026 #40 #american #AtraeBilis #BlackMetal #BrutalDeathMetal #CryptsOfDespair #DeathMetal #Deathcore #Éire #Entertainment #Feb26 #GreekMetal #Hardcore #Harm’sWay #IE #international #Ireland #Music #Phasma #Purgatory #Review #Reviews #TechnicalDeathMetal #TranscendingObscurityRecords #VampireSquid #Vimur #Whitechapel

Sometimes an album comes around ye olde promo pit that looks and smells familiar, but plays like something else entirely. Today’s entry into the “what the heck am I actually listening to?” hall of infamy is Phasma’s Purgatory. The third record from the Greek/US duo, and the first carried by a label—our beloved Transcending Obscurity Records—Purgatory continually subverted every expectation I had. In doing so, it became one of my biggest pleasant surprises in recent memory.

While early Phasma works boasted a songwriting style and sound that evoked a grotesque Whitechapel/Vampire Squid lovechild, Purgatory is a charred and venomous affair of only a tenuous relation to that concoction, and all the better for it. Conjuring a vision where Vimur, Harms Way, and Crypts of Despair’s first two albums merged into one mangled mass, Purgatory writhes and slithers through an unholy collection of brutal riffs, immolating tremolo flares, and swaggering grooves. While Phasma’s vocal approach largely carries over from early works, pairing a guttural roar with piercing screeches, but minimizing previously prevalent items like subterranean gurgles and glass-shattering squeals, it takes on an altogether more intimidating character here. Instead of showing off the full range of technical skills and range as this unit had to prove on their self-titled debut, Phasma took Purgatory as an opportunity to be as mean and concise as possible.

Purgatory by PHASMA

Simplifying their song structures, doubling down on memorable hooks, and restricting technical expositions to a minimum helped Phasma achieve their goal, resulting in a work that feels genuinely terrifying. Opening duo “I” and early highlight “II” prove this within thirty seconds of their introduction, but also create a delightful deviation from the usual songwriting tricks I expect from one phrase to another. For example, “I” makes me think a huge breakdown is about to drop right at the start, only to blast into the shadowed iciness of black metal, then dive seamlessly into a gym-ready hardcore groove. Subverting my expectations becomes a regular occurrence in Purgatory. “II,” “III,” and “VI” all venture deeper into doom-laden dungeons than I would’ve ever anticipated from a record as evil and high-energy as this. Harmonized melodies and layered guitar pyrotechnics only enhance this effect when things transition between paces and moods in a snap (“II”). By thusly offsetting their stripped-down writing with constant fiery twists and gnarly turns, Phasma crafted a remarkably exciting and rich experience that is an absolute joy to experience over and over again.

Despite its truncated 27-minute runtime, Purgatory burgeons with invigorating ideas all meticulously arranged, but initial spins suffer at the hands of a production of unforgiving loudness. “IV” in particular challenged my ability to appreciate the fantastic lead-into-chug-triplets and Vampire Squid riffs that bulge out from densely packed bass rumbles and glassy cymbals, in no small part because everything is so in-your-face as to flatten entirely. “V” feels a similar impact, though an eerie, bass-driven atmospheric break and subsequent Atrae Bilis-esque bridge briefly alleviates that effect. Understanding that the intended purpose of Purgatory is to oppress and destroy, a little more headroom in the mix and master would’ve allowed Phasma to hit harder and better highlight the myriad clever details distributed throughout.

Thankfully, the production isn’t so ruinous as to make my experience with Purgatory anything less than a delightful treat. As I spent more time with it, I loved it more, craved it regularly, and found additional moments to take home. Memorable beyond what I anticipated, and more engaging than I dared hope, Purgatory is a resounding success in all areas other than engineering. In some circles, that one weakness won’t matter much. In the end, it didn’t matter much to me either, such is the strength of Phasma’s songwriting.1 This is one trip to limbo you won’t want to miss!



Rating: Great!
DR: 5 | Format Reviewed: 320 kb/s mp3
Label: Transcending Obscurity Records
Websites: phasmaproject.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/PhasmaProject
Releases Worldwide: February 20th, 2026

Sometimes an album comes around ye olde promo pit that looks and smells familiar, but plays like something else entirely. Today’s entry into the “what the heck am I actually listening to?” hall of infamy is Phasma’s Purgatory. The third record from the Greek/US duo, and the first carried by a label—our beloved Transcending Obscurity Records—Purgatory continually subverted every expectation I had. In doing so, it became one of my biggest pleasant surprises in recent memory.

While early Phasma works boasted a songwriting style and sound that evoked a grotesque Whitechapel/Vampire Squid lovechild, Purgatory is a charred and venomous affair of only a tenuous relation to that concoction, and all the better for it. Conjuring a vision where Vimur, Harms Way, and Crypts of Despair’s first two albums merged into one mangled mass, Purgatory writhes and slithers through an unholy collection of brutal riffs, immolating tremolo flares, and swaggering grooves. While Phasma’s vocal approach largely carries over from early works, pairing a guttural roar with piercing screeches, but minimizing previously prevalent items like subterranean gurgles and glass-shattering squeals, it takes on an altogether more intimidating character here. Instead of showing off the full range of technical skills and range as this unit had to prove on their self-titled debut, Phasma took Purgatory as an opportunity to be as mean and concise as possible.

Purgatory by PHASMA

Simplifying their song structures, doubling down on memorable hooks, and restricting technical expositions to a minimum helped Phasma achieve their goal, resulting in a work that feels genuinely terrifying. Opening duo “I” and early highlight “II” prove this within thirty seconds of their introduction, but also create a delightful deviation from the usual songwriting tricks I expect from one phrase to another. For example, “I” makes me think a huge breakdown is about to drop right at the start, only to blast into the shadowed iciness of black metal, then dive seamlessly into a gym-ready hardcore groove. Subverting my expectations becomes a regular occurrence in Purgatory. “II,” “III,” and “VI” all venture deeper into doom-laden dungeons than I would’ve ever anticipated from a record as evil and high-energy as this. Harmonized melodies and layered guitar pyrotechnics only enhance this effect when things transition between paces and moods in a snap (“II”). By thusly offsetting their stripped-down writing with constant fiery twists and gnarly turns, Phasma crafted a remarkably exciting and rich experience that is an absolute joy to experience over and over again.

Despite its truncated 27-minute runtime, Purgatory burgeons with invigorating ideas all meticulously arranged, but initial spins suffer at the hands of a production of unforgiving loudness. “IV” in particular challenged my ability to appreciate the fantastic lead-into-chug-triplets and Vampire Squid riffs that bulge out from densely packed bass rumbles and glassy cymbals, in no small part because everything is so in-your-face as to flatten entirely. “V” feels a similar impact, though an eerie, bass-driven atmospheric break and subsequent Atrae Bilis-esque bridge briefly alleviates that effect. Understanding that the intended purpose of Purgatory is to oppress and destroy, a little more headroom in the mix and master would’ve allowed Phasma to hit harder and better highlight the myriad clever details distributed throughout.

Thankfully, the production isn’t so ruinous as to make my experience with Purgatory anything less than a delightful treat. As I spent more time with it, I loved it more, craved it regularly, and found additional moments to take home. Memorable beyond what I anticipated, and more engaging than I dared hope, Purgatory is a resounding success in all areas other than engineering. In some circles, that one weakness won’t matter much. In the end, it didn’t matter much to me either, such is the strength of Phasma’s songwriting.1 This is one trip to limbo you won’t want to miss!



Rating: Great!
DR: 5 | Format Reviewed: 320 kb/s mp3
Label: Transcending Obscurity Records
Websites: phasmaproject.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/PhasmaProject
Releases Worldwide: February 20th, 2026

Sometimes an album comes around ye olde promo pit that looks and smells familiar, but plays like something else entirely. Today’s entry into the “what the heck am I actually listening to?” hall of infamy is Phasma’s Purgatory. The third record from the Greek/US duo, and the first carried by a label—our beloved Transcending Obscurity Records—Purgatory continually subverted every expectation I had. In doing so, it became one of my biggest pleasant surprises in recent memory.

While early Phasma works boasted a songwriting style and sound that evoked a grotesque Whitechapel/Vampire Squid lovechild, Purgatory is a charred and venomous affair of only a tenuous relation to that concoction, and all the better for it. Conjuring a vision where Vimur, Harms Way, and Crypts of Despair’s first two albums merged into one mangled mass, Purgatory writhes and slithers through an unholy collection of brutal riffs, immolating tremolo flares, and swaggering grooves. While Phasma’s vocal approach largely carries over from early works, pairing a guttural roar with piercing screeches, but minimizing previously prevalent items like subterranean gurgles and glass-shattering squeals, it takes on an altogether more intimidating character here. Instead of showing off the full range of technical skills and range as this unit had to prove on their self-titled debut, Phasma took Purgatory as an opportunity to be as mean and concise as possible.

Purgatory by PHASMA

Simplifying their song structures, doubling down on memorable hooks, and restricting technical expositions to a minimum helped Phasma achieve their goal, resulting in a work that feels genuinely terrifying. Opening duo “I” and early highlight “II” prove this within thirty seconds of their introduction, but also create a delightful deviation from the usual songwriting tricks I expect from one phrase to another. For example, “I” makes me think a huge breakdown is about to drop right at the start, only to blast into the shadowed iciness of black metal, then dive seamlessly into a gym-ready hardcore groove. Subverting my expectations becomes a regular occurrence in Purgatory. “II,” “III,” and “VI” all venture deeper into doom-laden dungeons than I would’ve ever anticipated from a record as evil and high-energy as this. Harmonized melodies and layered guitar pyrotechnics only enhance this effect when things transition between paces and moods in a snap (“II”). By thusly offsetting their stripped-down writing with constant fiery twists and gnarly turns, Phasma crafted a remarkably exciting and rich experience that is an absolute joy to experience over and over again.

Despite its truncated 27-minute runtime, Purgatory burgeons with invigorating ideas all meticulously arranged, but initial spins suffer at the hands of a production of unforgiving loudness. “IV” in particular challenged my ability to appreciate the fantastic lead-into-chug-triplets and Vampire Squid riffs that bulge out from densely packed bass rumbles and glassy cymbals, in no small part because everything is so in-your-face as to flatten entirely. “V” feels a similar impact, though an eerie, bass-driven atmospheric break and subsequent Atrae Bilis-esque bridge briefly alleviates that effect. Understanding that the intended purpose of Purgatory is to oppress and destroy, a little more headroom in the mix and master would’ve allowed Phasma to hit harder and better highlight the myriad clever details distributed throughout.

Thankfully, the production isn’t so ruinous as to make my experience with Purgatory anything less than a delightful treat. As I spent more time with it, I loved it more, craved it regularly, and found additional moments to take home. Memorable beyond what I anticipated, and more engaging than I dared hope, Purgatory is a resounding success in all areas other than engineering. In some circles, that one weakness won’t matter much. In the end, it didn’t matter much to me either, such is the strength of Phasma’s songwriting.1 This is one trip to limbo you won’t want to miss!



Rating: Great!
DR: 5 | Format Reviewed: 320 kb/s mp3
Label: Transcending Obscurity Records
Websites: phasmaproject.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/PhasmaProject
Releases Worldwide: February 20th, 2026

Sometimes an album comes around ye olde promo pit that looks and smells familiar, but plays like something else entirely. Today’s entry into the “what the heck am I actually listening to?” hall of infamy is Phasma’s Purgatory. The third record from the Greek/US duo, and the first carried by a label—our beloved Transcending Obscurity Records—Purgatory continually subverted every expectation I had. In doing so, it became one of my biggest pleasant surprises in recent memory.

While early Phasma works boasted a songwriting style and sound that evoked a grotesque Whitechapel/Vampire Squid lovechild, Purgatory is a charred and venomous affair of only a tenuous relation to that concoction, and all the better for it. Conjuring a vision where Vimur, Harms Way, and Crypts of Despair’s first two albums merged into one mangled mass, Purgatory writhes and slithers through an unholy collection of brutal riffs, immolating tremolo flares, and swaggering grooves. While Phasma’s vocal approach largely carries over from early works, pairing a guttural roar with piercing screeches, but minimizing previously prevalent items like subterranean gurgles and glass-shattering squeals, it takes on an altogether more intimidating character here. Instead of showing off the full range of technical skills and range as this unit had to prove on their self-titled debut, Phasma took Purgatory as an opportunity to be as mean and concise as possible.

Purgatory by PHASMA

Simplifying their song structures, doubling down on memorable hooks, and restricting technical expositions to a minimum helped Phasma achieve their goal, resulting in a work that feels genuinely terrifying. Opening duo “I” and early highlight “II” prove this within thirty seconds of their introduction, but also create a delightful deviation from the usual songwriting tricks I expect from one phrase to another. For example, “I” makes me think a huge breakdown is about to drop right at the start, only to blast into the shadowed iciness of black metal, then dive seamlessly into a gym-ready hardcore groove. Subverting my expectations becomes a regular occurrence in Purgatory. “II,” “III,” and “VI” all venture deeper into doom-laden dungeons than I would’ve ever anticipated from a record as evil and high-energy as this. Harmonized melodies and layered guitar pyrotechnics only enhance this effect when things transition between paces and moods in a snap (“II”). By thusly offsetting their stripped-down writing with constant fiery twists and gnarly turns, Phasma crafted a remarkably exciting and rich experience that is an absolute joy to experience over and over again.

Despite its truncated 27-minute runtime, Purgatory burgeons with invigorating ideas all meticulously arranged, but initial spins suffer at the hands of a production of unforgiving loudness. “IV” in particular challenged my ability to appreciate the fantastic lead-into-chug-triplets and Vampire Squid riffs that bulge out from densely packed bass rumbles and glassy cymbals, in no small part because everything is so in-your-face as to flatten entirely. “V” feels a similar impact, though an eerie, bass-driven atmospheric break and subsequent Atrae Bilis-esque bridge briefly alleviates that effect. Understanding that the intended purpose of Purgatory is to oppress and destroy, a little more headroom in the mix and master would’ve allowed Phasma to hit harder and better highlight the myriad clever details distributed throughout.

Thankfully, the production isn’t so ruinous as to make my experience with Purgatory anything less than a delightful treat. As I spent more time with it, I loved it more, craved it regularly, and found additional moments to take home. Memorable beyond what I anticipated, and more engaging than I dared hope, Purgatory is a resounding success in all areas other than engineering. In some circles, that one weakness won’t matter much. In the end, it didn’t matter much to me either, such is the strength of Phasma’s songwriting.1 This is one trip to limbo you won’t want to miss!



Rating: Great!
DR: 5 | Format Reviewed: 320 kb/s mp3
Label: Transcending Obscurity Records
Websites: phasmaproject.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/PhasmaProject
Releases Worldwide: February 20th, 2026

Sometimes an album comes around ye olde promo pit that looks and smells familiar, but plays like something else entirely. Today’s entry into the “what the heck am I actually listening to?” hall of infamy is Phasma’s Purgatory. The third record from the Greek/US duo, and the first carried by a label—our beloved Transcending Obscurity Records—Purgatory continually subverted every expectation I had. In doing so, it became one of my biggest pleasant surprises in recent memory.

While early Phasma works boasted a songwriting style and sound that evoked a grotesque Whitechapel/Vampire Squid lovechild, Purgatory is a charred and venomous affair of only a tenuous relation to that concoction, and all the better for it. Conjuring a vision where Vimur, Harms Way, and Crypts of Despair’s first two albums merged into one mangled mass, Purgatory writhes and slithers through an unholy collection of brutal riffs, immolating tremolo flares, and swaggering grooves. While Phasma’s vocal approach largely carries over from early works, pairing a guttural roar with piercing screeches, but minimizing previously prevalent items like subterranean gurgles and glass-shattering squeals, it takes on an altogether more intimidating character here. Instead of showing off the full range of technical skills and range as this unit had to prove on their self-titled debut, Phasma took Purgatory as an opportunity to be as mean and concise as possible.

Purgatory by PHASMA

Simplifying their song structures, doubling down on memorable hooks, and restricting technical expositions to a minimum helped Phasma achieve their goal, resulting in a work that feels genuinely terrifying. Opening duo “I” and early highlight “II” prove this within thirty seconds of their introduction, but also create a delightful deviation from the usual songwriting tricks I expect from one phrase to another. For example, “I” makes me think a huge breakdown is about to drop right at the start, only to blast into the shadowed iciness of black metal, then dive seamlessly into a gym-ready hardcore groove. Subverting my expectations becomes a regular occurrence in Purgatory. “II,” “III,” and “VI” all venture deeper into doom-laden dungeons than I would’ve ever anticipated from a record as evil and high-energy as this. Harmonized melodies and layered guitar pyrotechnics only enhance this effect when things transition between paces and moods in a snap (“II”). By thusly offsetting their stripped-down writing with constant fiery twists and gnarly turns, Phasma crafted a remarkably exciting and rich experience that is an absolute joy to experience over and over again.

Despite its truncated 27-minute runtime, Purgatory burgeons with invigorating ideas all meticulously arranged, but initial spins suffer at the hands of a production of unforgiving loudness. “IV” in particular challenged my ability to appreciate the fantastic lead-into-chug-triplets and Vampire Squid riffs that bulge out from densely packed bass rumbles and glassy cymbals, in no small part because everything is so in-your-face as to flatten entirely. “V” feels a similar impact, though an eerie, bass-driven atmospheric break and subsequent Atrae Bilis-esque bridge briefly alleviates that effect. Understanding that the intended purpose of Purgatory is to oppress and destroy, a little more headroom in the mix and master would’ve allowed Phasma to hit harder and better highlight the myriad clever details distributed throughout.

Thankfully, the production isn’t so ruinous as to make my experience with Purgatory anything less than a delightful treat. As I spent more time with it, I loved it more, craved it regularly, and found additional moments to take home. Memorable beyond what I anticipated, and more engaging than I dared hope, Purgatory is a resounding success in all areas other than engineering. In some circles, that one weakness won’t matter much. In the end, it didn’t matter much to me either, such is the strength of Phasma’s songwriting.1 This is one trip to limbo you won’t want to miss!



Rating: Great!
DR: 5 | Format Reviewed: 320 kb/s mp3
Label: Transcending Obscurity Records
Websites: phasmaproject.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/PhasmaProject
Releases Worldwide: February 20th, 2026

New post: Gig Review: Lorna Shore / Whitechapel / Shadow of Intent / Humanity’s Last Breath – O2 Academy, Birmingham (9th February 2026) https://moshville.co.uk/reviews/gig-review/2026/02/gig-review-lorna-shore-whitechapel-shadow-of-intent-humanitys-last-breath-o2-academy-birmingham-9th-february-2026/ #Humanity'sLastBreath #LornaShore #ShadowOfIntent #Whitechapel

New post: Gig Review: Lorna Shore / Whitechapel / Shadow of Intent / Humanity’s Last Breath – O2 Academy, Birmingham (9th February 2026) https://moshville.co.uk/reviews/gig-review/2026/02/gig-review-lorna-shore-whitechapel-shadow-of-intent-humanitys-last-breath-o2-academy-birmingham-9th-february-2026/ #Humanity'sLastBreath #LornaShore #ShadowOfIntent #Whitechapel

Rolling Stone Announce ‘The 15 Best Metal Albums Of 2025’

Esteemed music publication Rolling Stone have published their list of ‘The 15 Best Metal Albums Of 2025’. In…
#NewsBeep #News #US #USA #UnitedStates #UnitedStatesOfAmerica #Music #Agriculture #BlutAusNord #CastleRat #Chepang #coroner #Deadguy #Deafheaven #Deftones #DreamTheater #Entertainment #Ghost #Halestorm #PrimitiveMan #Runemagick #Rwake #Whitechapel
https://www.newsbeep.com/us/368877/

Rolling Stone Announce ‘The 15 Best Metal Albums Of 2025’

Esteemed music publication Rolling Stone have published their list of ‘The 15 Best Metal Albums Of 2025’. In…
#NewsBeep #News #US #USA #UnitedStates #UnitedStatesOfAmerica #Music #Agriculture #BlutAusNord #CastleRat #Chepang #coroner #Deadguy #Deafheaven #Deftones #DreamTheater #Entertainment #Ghost #Halestorm #PrimitiveMan #Runemagick #Rwake #Whitechapel
https://www.newsbeep.com/us/368877/

Christmas Day 2023: London’s best lunches, from Bob Bob Ricard to Enoteca Turi

Many Young’s pubs are offering Christmas Day menus (the Windmill in Clapham looks …
#London #UnitedKingdom #UK #GB #England #Headlines #News #Europe #EU #Belgravia #BerkeleySquare #Britain #Chinatown #Christmas #Clapham #Claridge’s #CoventGarden #GreatBritain #GreenPark #Greenwich #HampsteadHeath #Highgate #King'sCross #london #lunches #Richmond #Soho #StPancras #Whitechapel
https://www.europesays.com/uk/643246/

https://www.europesays.com/uk/643246/ Christmas Day 2023: London’s best lunches, from Bob Bob Ricard to Enoteca Turi #Belgravia #BerkeleySquare #Britain #Chinatown #Christmas #Clapham #Claridge’s #CoventGarden #England #GreatBritain #GreenPark #Greenwich #HampsteadHeath #Highgate #King'sCross #london #lunches #Richmond #Soho #StPancras #UK #UnitedKingdom #Whitechapel

Slaughter to Prevail announce 2026 North American tour with Whitechapel & Attila:

#SlaughterToPrevail #TourAlert #Whitechapel #Attila

Link: https://metalinsider.net/touring/slaughter-to-prevail-announce-2026-north-american-tour-with-whitechapel-attila

Slaughter to Prevail announce 2026 North American tour with Whitechapel & Attila:

#SlaughterToPrevail #TourAlert #Whitechapel #Attila

Link: https://metalinsider.net/touring/slaughter-to-prevail-announce-2026-north-american-tour-with-whitechapel-attila

Just #Whitechapel things... 🐴
#London #horse #horseAndCart #weirdLondon #loveLondon

Just #Whitechapel things... 🐴
#London #horse #horseAndCart #weirdLondon #loveLondon

Just #Whitechapel things... 🐴
#London #horse #horseAndCart #weirdLondon #loveLondon

Just #Whitechapel things... 🐴
#London #horse #horseAndCart #weirdLondon #loveLondon

𝐋𝐞𝐲𝐞𝐧𝐝𝐚𝐬, 𝐏𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐣𝐞𝐬 𝐞 𝐇𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐚 𝐞𝐧 𝐏𝐫𝐢𝐦𝐞𝐫𝐚 𝐏𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐨𝐧𝐚
✵𝑼́𝒍𝒕𝒊𝒎𝒂 𝒏𝒐𝒄𝒉𝒆 𝒆𝒏 𝑾𝒉𝒊𝒕𝒆𝒄𝒉𝒂𝒑𝒆𝒍✵
─═☆═─═☆═─═☆═─═☆═─

Me llamo Mary Jane Kelly.
Tenía veinticinco años, y aún soñaba,
aunque el mundo me soñara muerta.
Vivía en el 26 de Dorset Street,
donde la esperanza se alquila por horas
y el frío duerme siempre en la cama.

Aquella noche —9 de noviembre de 1888—
la niebla era tan espesa
que ni Dios se habría atrevido a caminarla.
Él vino a mí envuelto en sombras,
con una calma que helaba la sangre,
con un silencio más cortante que su cuchillo.

Recuerdo su aliento:
olor a hierro, a infierno, a algo sin alma.
Sus manos me sujetaron como si la vida le debiera algo.
Quise gritar,
pero mi voz se quebró en el aire,
y el mundo siguió indiferente,
como si Whitechapel ya hubiese escuchado demasiados gritos.

El primer corte fue fuego,
el segundo ya no dolió,
el tercero me arrancó del cuerpo,
me dejó suspendida entre el miedo y la nada.
Sentí cómo me deshacía,
cómo mi carne se convertía en historia,
cómo la muerte me tomaba despacio,
con el detalle paciente de quien pinta un cuadro de horror.

Dicen que fui la más brutal,
la que más sufrió,
la que quedó irreconocible.
Y quizá sea cierto.
Pero nadie vio que antes de morir
pensé en mi madre, en el mar de Irlanda,
en las risas que dejé atrás,
en el amor que nunca tuve.

Ahora mi nombre es eco en las calles,
símbolo trágico, leyenda repetida,
pero yo sigo aquí,
en cada esquina húmeda,
en cada mujer que camina sola.

Yo soy Mary Jane Kelly,
la última de cinco,
la que el monstruo despojó de rostro
pero no de alma.
Y si escuchas un suspiro entre la niebla,
no temas.
Solo quiero que recuerdes
que yo también quise vivir.
─═☆═─═☆═─═☆═─═☆═─

#maryjanekelly #jacktheripper #whitechapel #amorymuerte #memoriadelasvíctimas #poesíadelhorror #terrorpoético #ecosdelaniebla #dolorhechoverso

Wretched – Decay Review

By Dear Hollow

Wretched has always been a strange beast, incorporating the heft of deathcore with the technicality and atmosphere of more progressive acts. While breakout album (and my introduction to the band) Beyond the Gate was an elegantly elegiac deathcore album, swaying between the patient sprawls of “Birthing Sloth” and the bouncy chugs of “My Carrion,” follow-ups Sons of Perdition and Cannibal reflected the changing of the guard at vocals, as Glass Casket frontman Adam Cody injected an unhinged frenetic energy that had the band flirting with grind and thrash. Decay is an important album, released eleven years after its predecessor and existing as a return to form for a band that never had a slump.

While Cody injected the North Carolina act with a sense of urgency, the return of original vocalist Billy Powers returns Wretched to its more elegant and patient approaches. Although deathcore is on the bill, most of the proceeds recall The Black Dahlia Murder and Inferi rather than the Suicide Silences and Whitechapels of the world – landing somewhere in the core- and melo-realm of Vale of Pnath or early The Faceless.1 Yes, you’ll find some sticky chugs that punch through periodically, but the emphasis on the interplay between ominous and melodic shines brightest in Decay, reflecting a concept album that returns to the mythological roots as well as its musical roots – serving as a narrative prequel to the concept behind Beyond the Gate. Retaining that chthonic atmosphere, the balance between the light and dark and newfound experimentation are tantalizing, if imperfect, elements in the rebirth of Wretched.

If Beyond the Gate was your favorite Wretched record, Decay is a welcome return. Waltz-like 6/8 timing, drawn-out passages collapsing into Steve Funderburk’s signature melodic cascades, and periodic breakdowns amid the elegiac, adding a necessary spike to the beautiful melodies. Powers’ vocals, as is the case in debut The Exodus of Anatomy and Beyond the Gate, can feel a bit jarring in their raspier tone and regularly impressive range (feeling asynchronous with the elegant instrumental musings) – but he delivers a charismatic performance that drives the music forward. The bookends of Decay find themselves in this realm, balancing melody with chunky bite and shifting tempos (“Decay,” “The Royal Body,” “Blackout”), while more aggressive rhythms and anthemic lyrics offer bouncy fun (“Malus Incarnate,” “The Golden Tide,” “The Golden Skyway”). While this range works, some tracks feel too rooted in the former, relying on overly long and uninteresting sprawls rooted in semi-heavy open strum patterns (“The Crimson Sky”). Taken as a whole, the first act can be a bit too heavy a mood-setter than a series of interesting songs, as well, due to Wretched’s more subdued approach.

The centerpieces of Decay find Wretched tossing out the template and flipping off the comfort zone. Blessedly, the experimentation is not without an adequate transition, as its simultaneously most brutal and most melodic (“Radiance”) appears to move fluidly into the more experimental meat. Grungy clean vocals and wailing guitar solos move through an almost Southern-fried bluesy melodic template (“Clairvoyance”), a heavenly choral interlude gives rest before the journey (“The Mortal Line”), and the longest Wretched track in its discography: the sixteen-minute long “Behind the Glass”2 moves between moods of despair, forgiveness, and light through layers of guitar leads, violin, flutes, and even accordion, deteriorating into viciously dark chugs. This is capped off by an unsettling foray into dissonance and jagged rhythms (“Lights”), before returning to the more aggressive third act.

At its worst, Wretched offers either dull shimmies of monotonous strums or a progressive edge so wild it can be disorienting. What’s remarkable, though, is that it nonetheless feels distinctly like Wretched, and a return to the mythological heyday of their sophomore effort – that flexibility has been a strength all along. Sure, Powers’ vocals can feel out of place in the gentler moments, some tracks don’t land, the heft is lacking, and the track list is shaped like an epic with weird-ass moments to shake you loose, but the band’s storytelling through its songwriting is well intact, if not better, than eleven years ago. It’s a welcome return to form for Wretched and speaks to avenues of possibility. The fifth full-length suggests more potential than it achieves but the moral is the same: ironically, no decay in sight.

Rating: 3.0/5.0
DR: 6 | Format Reviewed: 320 kb/s mp3
Label: Metal Blade Records
Websites: wretchednc.bandcamp.com | wretchedmusic.com | facebook.com/wretchednc
Releases Worldwide: October 17th, 2025

#2025 #30 #AmericanMetal #Deathcore #Decay #GlassCasket #Inferi #MelodicDeathMetal #MelodicDeathcore #MetalBladeRecords #MirrorOfDeadFaces #Oct25 #ProgressiveDeathMetal #Review #Reviews #SuicideSilence #TechnicalDeathcore #TheBlackDahliaMurder #TheFaceless #ValeOfPnath #Whitechapel #Wretched

Wretched – Decay Review

By Dear Hollow

Wretched has always been a strange beast, incorporating the heft of deathcore with the technicality and atmosphere of more progressive acts. While breakout album (and my introduction to the band) Beyond the Gate was an elegantly elegiac deathcore album, swaying between the patient sprawls of “Birthing Sloth” and the bouncy chugs of “My Carrion,” follow-ups Sons of Perdition and Cannibal reflected the changing of the guard at vocals, as Glass Casket frontman Adam Cody injected an unhinged frenetic energy that had the band flirting with grind and thrash. Decay is an important album, released eleven years after its predecessor and existing as a return to form for a band that never had a slump.

While Cody injected the North Carolina act with a sense of urgency, the return of original vocalist Billy Powers returns Wretched to its more elegant and patient approaches. Although deathcore is on the bill, most of the proceeds recall The Black Dahlia Murder and Inferi rather than the Suicide Silences and Whitechapels of the world – landing somewhere in the core- and melo-realm of Vale of Pnath or early The Faceless.1 Yes, you’ll find some sticky chugs that punch through periodically, but the emphasis on the interplay between ominous and melodic shines brightest in Decay, reflecting a concept album that returns to the mythological roots as well as its musical roots – serving as a narrative prequel to the concept behind Beyond the Gate. Retaining that chthonic atmosphere, the balance between the light and dark and newfound experimentation are tantalizing, if imperfect, elements in the rebirth of Wretched.

If Beyond the Gate was your favorite Wretched record, Decay is a welcome return. Waltz-like 6/8 timing, drawn-out passages collapsing into Steve Funderburk’s signature melodic cascades, and periodic breakdowns amid the elegiac, adding a necessary spike to the beautiful melodies. Powers’ vocals, as is the case in debut The Exodus of Anatomy and Beyond the Gate, can feel a bit jarring in their raspier tone and regularly impressive range (feeling asynchronous with the elegant instrumental musings) – but he delivers a charismatic performance that drives the music forward. The bookends of Decay find themselves in this realm, balancing melody with chunky bite and shifting tempos (“Decay,” “The Royal Body,” “Blackout”), while more aggressive rhythms and anthemic lyrics offer bouncy fun (“Malus Incarnate,” “The Golden Tide,” “The Golden Skyway”). While this range works, some tracks feel too rooted in the former, relying on overly long and uninteresting sprawls rooted in semi-heavy open strum patterns (“The Crimson Sky”). Taken as a whole, the first act can be a bit too heavy a mood-setter than a series of interesting songs, as well, due to Wretched’s more subdued approach.

The centerpieces of Decay find Wretched tossing out the template and flipping off the comfort zone. Blessedly, the experimentation is not without an adequate transition, as its simultaneously most brutal and most melodic (“Radiance”) appears to move fluidly into the more experimental meat. Grungy clean vocals and wailing guitar solos move through an almost Southern-fried bluesy melodic template (“Clairvoyance”), a heavenly choral interlude gives rest before the journey (“The Mortal Line”), and the longest Wretched track in its discography: the sixteen-minute long “Behind the Glass”2 moves between moods of despair, forgiveness, and light through layers of guitar leads, violin, flutes, and even accordion, deteriorating into viciously dark chugs. This is capped off by an unsettling foray into dissonance and jagged rhythms (“Lights”), before returning to the more aggressive third act.

At its worst, Wretched offers either dull shimmies of monotonous strums or a progressive edge so wild it can be disorienting. What’s remarkable, though, is that it nonetheless feels distinctly like Wretched, and a return to the mythological heyday of their sophomore effort – that flexibility has been a strength all along. Sure, Powers’ vocals can feel out of place in the gentler moments, some tracks don’t land, the heft is lacking, and the track list is shaped like an epic with weird-ass moments to shake you loose, but the band’s storytelling through its songwriting is well intact, if not better, than eleven years ago. It’s a welcome return to form for Wretched and speaks to avenues of possibility. The fifth full-length suggests more potential than it achieves but the moral is the same: ironically, no decay in sight.

Rating: 3.0/5.0
DR: 6 | Format Reviewed: 320 kb/s mp3
Label: Metal Blade Records
Websites: wretchednc.bandcamp.com | wretchedmusic.com | facebook.com/wretchednc
Releases Worldwide: October 17th, 2025

#2025 #30 #AmericanMetal #Deathcore #Decay #GlassCasket #Inferi #MelodicDeathMetal #MelodicDeathcore #MetalBladeRecords #MirrorOfDeadFaces #Oct25 #ProgressiveDeathMetal #Review #Reviews #SuicideSilence #TechnicalDeathcore #TheBlackDahliaMurder #TheFaceless #ValeOfPnath #Whitechapel #Wretched

Wretched – Decay Review

By Dear Hollow

Wretched has always been a strange beast, incorporating the heft of deathcore with the technicality and atmosphere of more progressive acts. While breakout album (and my introduction to the band) Beyond the Gate was an elegantly elegiac deathcore album, swaying between the patient sprawls of “Birthing Sloth” and the bouncy chugs of “My Carrion,” follow-ups Sons of Perdition and Cannibal reflected the changing of the guard at vocals, as Glass Casket frontman Adam Cody injected an unhinged frenetic energy that had the band flirting with grind and thrash. Decay is an important album, released eleven years after its predecessor and existing as a return to form for a band that never had a slump.

While Cody injected the North Carolina act with a sense of urgency, the return of original vocalist Billy Powers returns Wretched to its more elegant and patient approaches. Although deathcore is on the bill, most of the proceeds recall The Black Dahlia Murder and Inferi rather than the Suicide Silences and Whitechapels of the world – landing somewhere in the core- and melo-realm of Vale of Pnath or early The Faceless.1 Yes, you’ll find some sticky chugs that punch through periodically, but the emphasis on the interplay between ominous and melodic shines brightest in Decay, reflecting a concept album that returns to the mythological roots as well as its musical roots – serving as a narrative prequel to the concept behind Beyond the Gate. Retaining that chthonic atmosphere, the balance between the light and dark and newfound experimentation are tantalizing, if imperfect, elements in the rebirth of Wretched.

If Beyond the Gate was your favorite Wretched record, Decay is a welcome return. Waltz-like 6/8 timing, drawn-out passages collapsing into Steve Funderburk’s signature melodic cascades, and periodic breakdowns amid the elegiac, adding a necessary spike to the beautiful melodies. Powers’ vocals, as is the case in debut The Exodus of Anatomy and Beyond the Gate, can feel a bit jarring in their raspier tone and regularly impressive range (feeling asynchronous with the elegant instrumental musings) – but he delivers a charismatic performance that drives the music forward. The bookends of Decay find themselves in this realm, balancing melody with chunky bite and shifting tempos (“Decay,” “The Royal Body,” “Blackout”), while more aggressive rhythms and anthemic lyrics offer bouncy fun (“Malus Incarnate,” “The Golden Tide,” “The Golden Skyway”). While this range works, some tracks feel too rooted in the former, relying on overly long and uninteresting sprawls rooted in semi-heavy open strum patterns (“The Crimson Sky”). Taken as a whole, the first act can be a bit too heavy a mood-setter than a series of interesting songs, as well, due to Wretched’s more subdued approach.

The centerpieces of Decay find Wretched tossing out the template and flipping off the comfort zone. Blessedly, the experimentation is not without an adequate transition, as its simultaneously most brutal and most melodic (“Radiance”) appears to move fluidly into the more experimental meat. Grungy clean vocals and wailing guitar solos move through an almost Southern-fried bluesy melodic template (“Clairvoyance”), a heavenly choral interlude gives rest before the journey (“The Mortal Line”), and the longest Wretched track in its discography: the sixteen-minute long “Behind the Glass”2 moves between moods of despair, forgiveness, and light through layers of guitar leads, violin, flutes, and even accordion, deteriorating into viciously dark chugs. This is capped off by an unsettling foray into dissonance and jagged rhythms (“Lights”), before returning to the more aggressive third act.

At its worst, Wretched offers either dull shimmies of monotonous strums or a progressive edge so wild it can be disorienting. What’s remarkable, though, is that it nonetheless feels distinctly like Wretched, and a return to the mythological heyday of their sophomore effort – that flexibility has been a strength all along. Sure, Powers’ vocals can feel out of place in the gentler moments, some tracks don’t land, the heft is lacking, and the track list is shaped like an epic with weird-ass moments to shake you loose, but the band’s storytelling through its songwriting is well intact, if not better, than eleven years ago. It’s a welcome return to form for Wretched and speaks to avenues of possibility. The fifth full-length suggests more potential than it achieves but the moral is the same: ironically, no decay in sight.

Rating: 3.0/5.0
DR: 6 | Format Reviewed: 320 kb/s mp3
Label: Metal Blade Records
Websites: wretchednc.bandcamp.com | wretchedmusic.com | facebook.com/wretchednc
Releases Worldwide: October 17th, 2025

#2025 #30 #AmericanMetal #Deathcore #Decay #GlassCasket #Inferi #MelodicDeathMetal #MelodicDeathcore #MetalBladeRecords #MirrorOfDeadFaces #Oct25 #ProgressiveDeathMetal #Review #Reviews #SuicideSilence #TechnicalDeathcore #TheBlackDahliaMurder #TheFaceless #ValeOfPnath #Whitechapel #Wretched

Wretched – Decay Review

By Dear Hollow

Wretched has always been a strange beast, incorporating the heft of deathcore with the technicality and atmosphere of more progressive acts. While breakout album (and my introduction to the band) Beyond the Gate was an elegantly elegiac deathcore album, swaying between the patient sprawls of “Birthing Sloth” and the bouncy chugs of “My Carrion,” follow-ups Sons of Perdition and Cannibal reflected the changing of the guard at vocals, as Glass Casket frontman Adam Cody injected an unhinged frenetic energy that had the band flirting with grind and thrash. Decay is an important album, released eleven years after its predecessor and existing as a return to form for a band that never had a slump.

While Cody injected the North Carolina act with a sense of urgency, the return of original vocalist Billy Powers returns Wretched to its more elegant and patient approaches. Although deathcore is on the bill, most of the proceeds recall The Black Dahlia Murder and Inferi rather than the Suicide Silences and Whitechapels of the world – landing somewhere in the core- and melo-realm of Vale of Pnath or early The Faceless.1 Yes, you’ll find some sticky chugs that punch through periodically, but the emphasis on the interplay between ominous and melodic shines brightest in Decay, reflecting a concept album that returns to the mythological roots as well as its musical roots – serving as a narrative prequel to the concept behind Beyond the Gate. Retaining that chthonic atmosphere, the balance between the light and dark and newfound experimentation are tantalizing, if imperfect, elements in the rebirth of Wretched.

If Beyond the Gate was your favorite Wretched record, Decay is a welcome return. Waltz-like 6/8 timing, drawn-out passages collapsing into Steve Funderburk’s signature melodic cascades, and periodic breakdowns amid the elegiac, adding a necessary spike to the beautiful melodies. Powers’ vocals, as is the case in debut The Exodus of Anatomy and Beyond the Gate, can feel a bit jarring in their raspier tone and regularly impressive range (feeling asynchronous with the elegant instrumental musings) – but he delivers a charismatic performance that drives the music forward. The bookends of Decay find themselves in this realm, balancing melody with chunky bite and shifting tempos (“Decay,” “The Royal Body,” “Blackout”), while more aggressive rhythms and anthemic lyrics offer bouncy fun (“Malus Incarnate,” “The Golden Tide,” “The Golden Skyway”). While this range works, some tracks feel too rooted in the former, relying on overly long and uninteresting sprawls rooted in semi-heavy open strum patterns (“The Crimson Sky”). Taken as a whole, the first act can be a bit too heavy a mood-setter than a series of interesting songs, as well, due to Wretched’s more subdued approach.

The centerpieces of Decay find Wretched tossing out the template and flipping off the comfort zone. Blessedly, the experimentation is not without an adequate transition, as its simultaneously most brutal and most melodic (“Radiance”) appears to move fluidly into the more experimental meat. Grungy clean vocals and wailing guitar solos move through an almost Southern-fried bluesy melodic template (“Clairvoyance”), a heavenly choral interlude gives rest before the journey (“The Mortal Line”), and the longest Wretched track in its discography: the sixteen-minute long “Behind the Glass”2 moves between moods of despair, forgiveness, and light through layers of guitar leads, violin, flutes, and even accordion, deteriorating into viciously dark chugs. This is capped off by an unsettling foray into dissonance and jagged rhythms (“Lights”), before returning to the more aggressive third act.

At its worst, Wretched offers either dull shimmies of monotonous strums or a progressive edge so wild it can be disorienting. What’s remarkable, though, is that it nonetheless feels distinctly like Wretched, and a return to the mythological heyday of their sophomore effort – that flexibility has been a strength all along. Sure, Powers’ vocals can feel out of place in the gentler moments, some tracks don’t land, the heft is lacking, and the track list is shaped like an epic with weird-ass moments to shake you loose, but the band’s storytelling through its songwriting is well intact, if not better, than eleven years ago. It’s a welcome return to form for Wretched and speaks to avenues of possibility. The fifth full-length suggests more potential than it achieves but the moral is the same: ironically, no decay in sight.

Rating: 3.0/5.0
DR: 6 | Format Reviewed: 320 kb/s mp3
Label: Metal Blade Records
Websites: wretchednc.bandcamp.com | wretchedmusic.com | facebook.com/wretchednc
Releases Worldwide: October 17th, 2025

#2025 #30 #AmericanMetal #Deathcore #Decay #GlassCasket #Inferi #MelodicDeathMetal #MelodicDeathcore #MetalBladeRecords #MirrorOfDeadFaces #Oct25 #ProgressiveDeathMetal #Review #Reviews #SuicideSilence #TechnicalDeathcore #TheBlackDahliaMurder #TheFaceless #ValeOfPnath #Whitechapel #Wretched

Wretched – Decay Review

By Dear Hollow

Wretched has always been a strange beast, incorporating the heft of deathcore with the technicality and atmosphere of more progressive acts. While breakout album (and my introduction to the band) Beyond the Gate was an elegantly elegiac deathcore album, swaying between the patient sprawls of “Birthing Sloth” and the bouncy chugs of “My Carrion,” follow-ups Sons of Perdition and Cannibal reflected the changing of the guard at vocals, as Glass Casket frontman Adam Cody injected an unhinged frenetic energy that had the band flirting with grind and thrash. Decay is an important album, released eleven years after its predecessor and existing as a return to form for a band that never had a slump.

While Cody injected the North Carolina act with a sense of urgency, the return of original vocalist Billy Powers returns Wretched to its more elegant and patient approaches. Although deathcore is on the bill, most of the proceeds recall The Black Dahlia Murder and Inferi rather than the Suicide Silences and Whitechapels of the world – landing somewhere in the core- and melo-realm of Vale of Pnath or early The Faceless.1 Yes, you’ll find some sticky chugs that punch through periodically, but the emphasis on the interplay between ominous and melodic shines brightest in Decay, reflecting a concept album that returns to the mythological roots as well as its musical roots – serving as a narrative prequel to the concept behind Beyond the Gate. Retaining that chthonic atmosphere, the balance between the light and dark and newfound experimentation are tantalizing, if imperfect, elements in the rebirth of Wretched.

If Beyond the Gate was your favorite Wretched record, Decay is a welcome return. Waltz-like 6/8 timing, drawn-out passages collapsing into Steve Funderburk’s signature melodic cascades, and periodic breakdowns amid the elegiac, adding a necessary spike to the beautiful melodies. Powers’ vocals, as is the case in debut The Exodus of Anatomy and Beyond the Gate, can feel a bit jarring in their raspier tone and regularly impressive range (feeling asynchronous with the elegant instrumental musings) – but he delivers a charismatic performance that drives the music forward. The bookends of Decay find themselves in this realm, balancing melody with chunky bite and shifting tempos (“Decay,” “The Royal Body,” “Blackout”), while more aggressive rhythms and anthemic lyrics offer bouncy fun (“Malus Incarnate,” “The Golden Tide,” “The Golden Skyway”). While this range works, some tracks feel too rooted in the former, relying on overly long and uninteresting sprawls rooted in semi-heavy open strum patterns (“The Crimson Sky”). Taken as a whole, the first act can be a bit too heavy a mood-setter than a series of interesting songs, as well, due to Wretched’s more subdued approach.

The centerpieces of Decay find Wretched tossing out the template and flipping off the comfort zone. Blessedly, the experimentation is not without an adequate transition, as its simultaneously most brutal and most melodic (“Radiance”) appears to move fluidly into the more experimental meat. Grungy clean vocals and wailing guitar solos move through an almost Southern-fried bluesy melodic template (“Clairvoyance”), a heavenly choral interlude gives rest before the journey (“The Mortal Line”), and the longest Wretched track in its discography: the sixteen-minute long “Behind the Glass”2 moves between moods of despair, forgiveness, and light through layers of guitar leads, violin, flutes, and even accordion, deteriorating into viciously dark chugs. This is capped off by an unsettling foray into dissonance and jagged rhythms (“Lights”), before returning to the more aggressive third act.

At its worst, Wretched offers either dull shimmies of monotonous strums or a progressive edge so wild it can be disorienting. What’s remarkable, though, is that it nonetheless feels distinctly like Wretched, and a return to the mythological heyday of their sophomore effort – that flexibility has been a strength all along. Sure, Powers’ vocals can feel out of place in the gentler moments, some tracks don’t land, the heft is lacking, and the track list is shaped like an epic with weird-ass moments to shake you loose, but the band’s storytelling through its songwriting is well intact, if not better, than eleven years ago. It’s a welcome return to form for Wretched and speaks to avenues of possibility. The fifth full-length suggests more potential than it achieves but the moral is the same: ironically, no decay in sight.

Rating: 3.0/5.0
DR: 6 | Format Reviewed: 320 kb/s mp3
Label: Metal Blade Records
Websites: wretchednc.bandcamp.com | wretchedmusic.com | facebook.com/wretchednc
Releases Worldwide: October 17th, 2025

#2025 #30 #AmericanMetal #Deathcore #Decay #GlassCasket #Inferi #MelodicDeathMetal #MelodicDeathcore #MetalBladeRecords #MirrorOfDeadFaces #Oct25 #ProgressiveDeathMetal #Review #Reviews #SuicideSilence #TechnicalDeathcore #TheBlackDahliaMurder #TheFaceless #ValeOfPnath #Whitechapel #Wretched

Signs of the Swarm – To Rid Myself of Truth Review

By Dear Hollow

I think deathcore’s lack of respect in metal circles is due to its subservience to trends. Riding waves of what’s considered too brutal or not, the recent MySpace-style revival and the inevitable shadow of Will Ramos-fronted Lorna Shore have collided to emphasize relentless brutality and utter sonic depravity. Signs of the Swarm has been a victim of this more than most, riding the coattails of the trends rather than setting them, and while offering some of the most intense deathcore offerings within the realm of the “low and slow” template, there’s been nothing to convince naysayers to give their albums a listen. Will To Rid Myself of Truth be the tipping point?

In many ways, To Rid Myself of Truth is the part 2 of predecessor Amongst the Low & the Empty, but the Pittsburgh quartet has never quite hammered down what their trademark approach to deathcore is. From the slammy gurgles of CJ McCreery’s troubled tenure in Senseless Order and The Disfigurement of Existence, to the husky roars of David Simonich in his contributions to discography highlights Vital Deprivation and Absolvere, Signs of the Swarm has latched onto Low & Empty’s template in being as brutally downtuned and chuggily cutthroat as possible. To Rid Myself of Truth continues the toe-dipping into djent and industrial for maximum heft and devastation, and while it’s better than its predecessor, it still begs the question why you should go out of your way to rid yourself of truth.

To Signs of the Swarm’s credit, To Rid Myself of Truth is a little more than the one-trick pony fucking shit up in the pit the way its predecessor was. Techier flourishes, rabid blastbeats, and rhythmic warbling offer reprieves in the muck, while better songwriting doesn’t end every track with ten-ton demonic breakdowns. Pinch harmonics add a dimension of madness to the already insane brutality (“Natural Selection,” “Iron Sacrament”) and jerky djent rhythms add a bit of variety (“Scars Upon Scars”), while a neat lil’ groove spices things up (“HELLMUSTFEARME,” “Chariot”). Once again, Simonich delivers an absolutely monstrous performance, his horrifying vocals an easy highlight amid low and empty chuggery, including some tasteful grunge-influenced cleans atop eerie industrial-influenced plucking and atmospheric tremolo picking (“Forcing to Forget”). Guest vocalists show up in tasteful areas, including the man, the myth, the Lorna-man Will Ramos (“Clouded Retinas”), Whitechapel’s Phil Bozeman (“Iron Sacrament”), 156/Silence’s Jack Murray, and Prison’s Johnny Crowder (“Fear & Judgement”), providing a bit of reprieve to Simonich’s all-consuming roar. To Rid Myself of Truth can feel like a honed version of Amongst the Low & Empty, utilizing the same tools but with tighter performances.

To Rid Myself of Truth has all the ingredients to a solid album – as Signs of the Swarm has always possessed – but the execution of excessive brutality and stuffy production makes it into a messed up deathcore duck-cake.1 While it felt like Amongst the Low & Empty had almost infinite breadth in its production and mixing, To Rid Myself of Truth is majorly compressed and condensed, perhaps lending itself to the tight galloping of Absolvere. But we can’t have our duck cake and eat it too, because the mix is absolutely suffocating trying to remedy the two approaches. As such, like you insulted Signs of the Swarm’s mother, you’ll be hit with so many concussions in sheer amount of breakdowns and venomous attacks, it’ll be hard to keep track (“HELLMUSTFEARME,” “Chariot,” “Sarkazein” all come to mind). Many of these tracks likewise follow a similar pattern, opening up with the title of the song roared, followed by bone-crushing breakdowns, too often adhering to the “To the Hellfire” formula of “yuuuuuuge” concussive chugs and Simonich sounding as animalistic and demonic as possible.

To Rid Myself of Truth is catharsis for Signs of the Swarm,2 a streamlined potpourri of no-frills deathcore that continually beats you over the head with “ze brootalz.” If this is your bread and butter, then feel free to rid yourself of truth – this album was written for you. Signs of the Swarm, as in the case with Amongst the Low & Empty, constantly impresses with its trendiness and novelty: a relentless breed of brutality with a consistently impressive vocal performance. However, once the novelty wears off, you’re left with brickwalled production and copied-and-pasted brutality. To Rid Myself of Truth? More like To Rid Myself of Tooth.3

Rating: 1.5/5.0
DR: 3 | Format Reviewed: 320 kb/s mp3
Label: Century Media Records
Websites: signsoftheswarm.bandcamp.com | signsoftheswarm.com | facebook.com/signsoftheswarm
Releases Worldwide: August 22nd, 2025

#15 #156Silence #2025 #AmericanMetal #Aug25 #CenturyMediaRecords #Deathcore #Djent #LornaShore #Prison #Review #Reviews #SignsOfTheSwarm #ToRidMyselfOfTruth #Whitechapel

Psycho-Frame – Salvation Laughs in the Face of a Grieving Mother Review

Dea…
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Psycho-Frame – Salvation Laughs in the Face of a Grieving Mother Review

By Dear Hollow

Deathcore doesn’t give a shit. There was a moment when bands like Lorna Shore and Slaughter to Prevail attempted to make deathcore more accessible to other metal fans, incorporating blackened/symphonic textures or nu-metal influences. However terrible, solid, milquetoast, or well-intentioned you found it, that’s not the spirit of deathcore. Psycho-Frame has steadily been building a fanbase around their particularly unhinged take on deathcore with the release of 2023 EPs Remote God Seeker and Automatic Death Protocol, and we’re finally faced with a full-length debut: Salvation Laughs in the Face of a Grieving Mother. But don’t expect heavyhandedness – expect just heavy. Dumb heavy. Basically, the music for the sellout. Get those fists swingin’, Hot Topic frequenters! We’re goin’ to the mall.

Psycho-Frame embodies a trend in deathcore that is layered in nostalgia. Fearing that the style has lost its teeth, bands like the nation-spanning six-piece1 embrace the days of MySpace (think old-school Chelsea Grin or Bring Me the Horizon). It’s raw, groovy, and devastating, brandishing a brand wavering between thick-ass breakdowns settling on the ocean floor and lightning-fast blastbeats and unhinged technical thrills. Psycho-Frame otherwise benefits from a two-vocal attack, with Mike Sugars relying on a tough Frankie Palmeri bark attack while Jonathan Whittle offers fierce shrieks, horrific bellows, and the occasional pig squeal. It’s big, dumb fun that doesn’t overstay its welcome, embracing a savage edge contrary to contemporary acts off the same ilk: the rawness of Killing of a Sacred Deer or the melodic technicality of Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Psycho-Frame emerges as the elite, its loud and ouchy production amped to louder and ouchier, its vocal attack barbaric and ominous, and its songwriting whiplash-inducing. It’s everything you love – and loathe – about deathcore.

There’s little nuance in Salvation Laughs – if it’s thoughtful songwriting and careful construction you’re after, Psycho-Frame ain’t it. It doesn’t have a lick of the tragedy its title implies because, remember, deathcore doesn’t give a shit. It recalls the chaos of This is Exile-era Whitechapel, The Cleansing-era Suicide Silence, or self-titled Chelsea Grin in its chunky viciousness and stonewalled rigidity. Neck-snapping tempo shifts are a norm, downtempo Black Tongue chugdowns assaulting your ears one second before ravaging them with ripping blastbeats and shredding riffs. Riffiness is a trait not often expounded upon by deathcore, but it appears often throughout Salvation Laughs, giving an unexpected head-bobbing groove and pinch harmonics (“Blueprints for Idol Genocide,” “Endless Agonal Devotion”), jaw-dropping fretboard wizardry that recalls Beneath the Massacre and pairs neatly with numbskull density (“Apocalypse Through Lysergic Possession”), while slam’s gurgling lurch a la Ingested adds nice sonic depravity (“Filleted and Fucked,” “Still Water Salvation”). Each member offers his best, the dual shrieks and roars commanding charisma, the guitars offering flaying technicality and caveman knuckle-dragging meatheadedness equally, bass holding up the sound amid the fray, and drums retain a sharp metallic ring that adds to the unhinged quality Psycho-Frame possesses.

For the same reasons, some will love Psycho-Frame, others will understandably loathe it. In many ways, it feels like the insanity of mid-2000s deathcore distilled into a bullying thirty-eight minutes. It’s relentless, it’s over-the-top, and perfect to make frowny faces at while you windmill your way through the pit. That being said, some parts of the album are guiltier than others: when groove dominates, the result is an insane little number, but when that’s toned down to channel Suicide Silence, it sounds pitifully stale (“The Portal,” “BLACK_WAVE II”). Furthermore, there are short-lived spoken word samples scattered throughout the album, which provide more of a blush than the creepiness factor they are attempting to instill. But apart from the nitpicks, for nearly all the reasons mentioned in the paragraph above, Salvation Laughs in the Face of a Grieving Mother can be the thorn in a metalhead’s side – Psycho-Frame is truly an apt representative of deathcore.

For better or worse, Psycho-Frame is deathcore, and it doesn’t pretend to be anything else. It’s big and dumb, overly loud and obnoxious, with enough groove, rawness, and wonky tricks to carry its dual vocal attack into something resembling enjoyment. It’s a low-ceiling, low-floor situation, because Salvation Laughs in the Face of a Grieving Mother can either bring some fun into your day or utterly ruin it. I had fun with Psycho-Frame because of its refreshing simplicity and relentless brutality – but it’s still a cautionary tale.

Rating: 3.0/5.0
DR: N/A | Format Reviewed:
Label: Sharptone Records
Websites: psychoframedc.bandcamp.com | psychoframe.com | facebook.com/psychoframedeathcore
Releases Worldwide: July 25th, 2025

#2025 #30 #AmericanMetal #BeneathTheMassacre #BlackTongue #BringMeTheHorizon #ChelseaGrin #Deathcore #Ingested #Jul25 #KillingOfASacredDeer #LornaShore #PsychoFrame #Review #Reviews #SalvationLaughsInTheFaceOfAGrievingMother #SharpToneRecords #SlammingDeathcore #SlaughterToPrevail #SuicideSilence #ThusSpokeZarathustra #Whitechapel

Psycho-Frame – Salvation Laughs in the Face of a Grieving Mother Review

By Dear Hollow

Deathcore doesn’t give a shit. There was a moment when bands like Lorna Shore and Slaughter to Prevail attempted to make deathcore more accessible to other metal fans, incorporating blackened/symphonic textures or nu-metal influences. However terrible, solid, milquetoast, or well-intentioned you found it, that’s not the spirit of deathcore. Psycho-Frame has steadily been building a fanbase around their particularly unhinged take on deathcore with the release of 2023 EPs Remote God Seeker and Automatic Death Protocol, and we’re finally faced with a full-length debut: Salvation Laughs in the Face of a Grieving Mother. But don’t expect heavyhandedness – expect just heavy. Dumb heavy. Basically, the music for the sellout. Get those fists swingin’, Hot Topic frequenters! We’re goin’ to the mall.

Psycho-Frame embodies a trend in deathcore that is layered in nostalgia. Fearing that the style has lost its teeth, bands like the nation-spanning six-piece1 embrace the days of MySpace (think old-school Chelsea Grin or Bring Me the Horizon). It’s raw, groovy, and devastating, brandishing a brand wavering between thick-ass breakdowns settling on the ocean floor and lightning-fast blastbeats and unhinged technical thrills. Psycho-Frame otherwise benefits from a two-vocal attack, with Mike Sugars relying on a tough Frankie Palmeri bark attack while Jonathan Whittle offers fierce shrieks, horrific bellows, and the occasional pig squeal. It’s big, dumb fun that doesn’t overstay its welcome, embracing a savage edge contrary to contemporary acts off the same ilk: the rawness of Killing of a Sacred Deer or the melodic technicality of Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Psycho-Frame emerges as the elite, its loud and ouchy production amped to louder and ouchier, its vocal attack barbaric and ominous, and its songwriting whiplash-inducing. It’s everything you love – and loathe – about deathcore.

There’s little nuance in Salvation Laughs – if it’s thoughtful songwriting and careful construction you’re after, Psycho-Frame ain’t it. It doesn’t have a lick of the tragedy its title implies because, remember, deathcore doesn’t give a shit. It recalls the chaos of This is Exile-era Whitechapel, The Cleansing-era Suicide Silence, or self-titled Chelsea Grin in its chunky viciousness and stonewalled rigidity. Neck-snapping tempo shifts are a norm, downtempo Black Tongue chugdowns assaulting your ears one second before ravaging them with ripping blastbeats and shredding riffs. Riffiness is a trait not often expounded upon by deathcore, but it appears often throughout Salvation Laughs, giving an unexpected head-bobbing groove and pinch harmonics (“Blueprints for Idol Genocide,” “Endless Agonal Devotion”), jaw-dropping fretboard wizardry that recalls Beneath the Massacre and pairs neatly with numbskull density (“Apocalypse Through Lysergic Possession”), while slam’s gurgling lurch a la Ingested adds nice sonic depravity (“Filleted and Fucked,” “Still Water Salvation”). Each member offers his best, the dual shrieks and roars commanding charisma, the guitars offering flaying technicality and caveman knuckle-dragging meatheadedness equally, bass holding up the sound amid the fray, and drums retain a sharp metallic ring that adds to the unhinged quality Psycho-Frame possesses.

For the same reasons, some will love Psycho-Frame, others will understandably loathe it. In many ways, it feels like the insanity of mid-2000s deathcore distilled into a bullying thirty-eight minutes. It’s relentless, it’s over-the-top, and perfect to make frowny faces at while you windmill your way through the pit. That being said, some parts of the album are guiltier than others: when groove dominates, the result is an insane little number, but when that’s toned down to channel Suicide Silence, it sounds pitifully stale (“The Portal,” “BLACK_WAVE II”). Furthermore, there are short-lived spoken word samples scattered throughout the album, which provide more of a blush than the creepiness factor they are attempting to instill. But apart from the nitpicks, for nearly all the reasons mentioned in the paragraph above, Salvation Laughs in the Face of a Grieving Mother can be the thorn in a metalhead’s side – Psycho-Frame is truly an apt representative of deathcore.

For better or worse, Psycho-Frame is deathcore, and it doesn’t pretend to be anything else. It’s big and dumb, overly loud and obnoxious, with enough groove, rawness, and wonky tricks to carry its dual vocal attack into something resembling enjoyment. It’s a low-ceiling, low-floor situation, because Salvation Laughs in the Face of a Grieving Mother can either bring some fun into your day or utterly ruin it. I had fun with Psycho-Frame because of its refreshing simplicity and relentless brutality – but it’s still a cautionary tale.

Rating: 3.0/5.0
DR: N/A | Format Reviewed:
Label: Sharptone Records
Websites: psychoframedc.bandcamp.com | psychoframe.com | facebook.com/psychoframedeathcore
Releases Worldwide: July 25th, 2025

#2025 #30 #AmericanMetal #BeneathTheMassacre #BlackTongue #BringMeTheHorizon #ChelseaGrin #Deathcore #Ingested #Jul25 #KillingOfASacredDeer #LornaShore #PsychoFrame #Review #Reviews #SalvationLaughsInTheFaceOfAGrievingMother #SharpToneRecords #SlammingDeathcore #SlaughterToPrevail #SuicideSilence #ThusSpokeZarathustra #Whitechapel

Psycho-Frame – Salvation Laughs in the Face of a Grieving Mother Review

By Dear Hollow

Deathcore doesn’t give a shit. There was a moment when bands like Lorna Shore and Slaughter to Prevail attempted to make deathcore more accessible to other metal fans, incorporating blackened/symphonic textures or nu-metal influences. However terrible, solid, milquetoast, or well-intentioned you found it, that’s not the spirit of deathcore. Psycho-Frame has steadily been building a fanbase around their particularly unhinged take on deathcore with the release of 2023 EPs Remote God Seeker and Automatic Death Protocol, and we’re finally faced with a full-length debut: Salvation Laughs in the Face of a Grieving Mother. But don’t expect heavyhandedness – expect just heavy. Dumb heavy. Basically, the music for the sellout. Get those fists swingin’, Hot Topic frequenters! We’re goin’ to the mall.

Psycho-Frame embodies a trend in deathcore that is layered in nostalgia. Fearing that the style has lost its teeth, bands like the nation-spanning six-piece1 embrace the days of MySpace (think old-school Chelsea Grin or Bring Me the Horizon). It’s raw, groovy, and devastating, brandishing a brand wavering between thick-ass breakdowns settling on the ocean floor and lightning-fast blastbeats and unhinged technical thrills. Psycho-Frame otherwise benefits from a two-vocal attack, with Mike Sugars relying on a tough Frankie Palmeri bark attack while Jonathan Whittle offers fierce shrieks, horrific bellows, and the occasional pig squeal. It’s big, dumb fun that doesn’t overstay its welcome, embracing a savage edge contrary to contemporary acts off the same ilk: the rawness of Killing of a Sacred Deer or the melodic technicality of Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Psycho-Frame emerges as the elite, its loud and ouchy production amped to louder and ouchier, its vocal attack barbaric and ominous, and its songwriting whiplash-inducing. It’s everything you love – and loathe – about deathcore.

There’s little nuance in Salvation Laughs – if it’s thoughtful songwriting and careful construction you’re after, Psycho-Frame ain’t it. It doesn’t have a lick of the tragedy its title implies because, remember, deathcore doesn’t give a shit. It recalls the chaos of This is Exile-era Whitechapel, The Cleansing-era Suicide Silence, or self-titled Chelsea Grin in its chunky viciousness and stonewalled rigidity. Neck-snapping tempo shifts are a norm, downtempo Black Tongue chugdowns assaulting your ears one second before ravaging them with ripping blastbeats and shredding riffs. Riffiness is a trait not often expounded upon by deathcore, but it appears often throughout Salvation Laughs, giving an unexpected head-bobbing groove and pinch harmonics (“Blueprints for Idol Genocide,” “Endless Agonal Devotion”), jaw-dropping fretboard wizardry that recalls Beneath the Massacre and pairs neatly with numbskull density (“Apocalypse Through Lysergic Possession”), while slam’s gurgling lurch a la Ingested adds nice sonic depravity (“Filleted and Fucked,” “Still Water Salvation”). Each member offers his best, the dual shrieks and roars commanding charisma, the guitars offering flaying technicality and caveman knuckle-dragging meatheadedness equally, bass holding up the sound amid the fray, and drums retain a sharp metallic ring that adds to the unhinged quality Psycho-Frame possesses.

For the same reasons, some will love Psycho-Frame, others will understandably loathe it. In many ways, it feels like the insanity of mid-2000s deathcore distilled into a bullying thirty-eight minutes. It’s relentless, it’s over-the-top, and perfect to make frowny faces at while you windmill your way through the pit. That being said, some parts of the album are guiltier than others: when groove dominates, the result is an insane little number, but when that’s toned down to channel Suicide Silence, it sounds pitifully stale (“The Portal,” “BLACK_WAVE II”). Furthermore, there are short-lived spoken word samples scattered throughout the album, which provide more of a blush than the creepiness factor they are attempting to instill. But apart from the nitpicks, for nearly all the reasons mentioned in the paragraph above, Salvation Laughs in the Face of a Grieving Mother can be the thorn in a metalhead’s side – Psycho-Frame is truly an apt representative of deathcore.

For better or worse, Psycho-Frame is deathcore, and it doesn’t pretend to be anything else. It’s big and dumb, overly loud and obnoxious, with enough groove, rawness, and wonky tricks to carry its dual vocal attack into something resembling enjoyment. It’s a low-ceiling, low-floor situation, because Salvation Laughs in the Face of a Grieving Mother can either bring some fun into your day or utterly ruin it. I had fun with Psycho-Frame because of its refreshing simplicity and relentless brutality – but it’s still a cautionary tale.

Rating: 3.0/5.0
DR: N/A | Format Reviewed:
Label: Sharptone Records
Websites: psychoframedc.bandcamp.com | psychoframe.com | facebook.com/psychoframedeathcore
Releases Worldwide: July 25th, 2025

#2025 #30 #AmericanMetal #BeneathTheMassacre #BlackTongue #BringMeTheHorizon #ChelseaGrin #Deathcore #Ingested #Jul25 #KillingOfASacredDeer #LornaShore #PsychoFrame #Review #Reviews #SalvationLaughsInTheFaceOfAGrievingMother #SharpToneRecords #SlammingDeathcore #SlaughterToPrevail #SuicideSilence #ThusSpokeZarathustra #Whitechapel

Psycho-Frame – Salvation Laughs in the Face of a Grieving Mother Review

By Dear Hollow

Deathcore doesn’t give a shit. There was a moment when bands like Lorna Shore and Slaughter to Prevail attempted to make deathcore more accessible to other metal fans, incorporating blackened/symphonic textures or nu-metal influences. However terrible, solid, milquetoast, or well-intentioned you found it, that’s not the spirit of deathcore. Psycho-Frame has steadily been building a fanbase around their particularly unhinged take on deathcore with the release of 2023 EPs Remote God Seeker and Automatic Death Protocol, and we’re finally faced with a full-length debut: Salvation Laughs in the Face of a Grieving Mother. But don’t expect heavyhandedness – expect just heavy. Dumb heavy. Basically, the music for the sellout. Get those fists swingin’, Hot Topic frequenters! We’re goin’ to the mall.

Psycho-Frame embodies a trend in deathcore that is layered in nostalgia. Fearing that the style has lost its teeth, bands like the nation-spanning six-piece1 embrace the days of MySpace (think old-school Chelsea Grin or Bring Me the Horizon). It’s raw, groovy, and devastating, brandishing a brand wavering between thick-ass breakdowns settling on the ocean floor and lightning-fast blastbeats and unhinged technical thrills. Psycho-Frame otherwise benefits from a two-vocal attack, with Mike Sugars relying on a tough Frankie Palmeri bark attack while Jonathan Whittle offers fierce shrieks, horrific bellows, and the occasional pig squeal. It’s big, dumb fun that doesn’t overstay its welcome, embracing a savage edge contrary to contemporary acts off the same ilk: the rawness of Killing of a Sacred Deer or the melodic technicality of Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Psycho-Frame emerges as the elite, its loud and ouchy production amped to louder and ouchier, its vocal attack barbaric and ominous, and its songwriting whiplash-inducing. It’s everything you love – and loathe – about deathcore.

There’s little nuance in Salvation Laughs – if it’s thoughtful songwriting and careful construction you’re after, Psycho-Frame ain’t it. It doesn’t have a lick of the tragedy its title implies because, remember, deathcore doesn’t give a shit. It recalls the chaos of This is Exile-era Whitechapel, The Cleansing-era Suicide Silence, or self-titled Chelsea Grin in its chunky viciousness and stonewalled rigidity. Neck-snapping tempo shifts are a norm, downtempo Black Tongue chugdowns assaulting your ears one second before ravaging them with ripping blastbeats and shredding riffs. Riffiness is a trait not often expounded upon by deathcore, but it appears often throughout Salvation Laughs, giving an unexpected head-bobbing groove and pinch harmonics (“Blueprints for Idol Genocide,” “Endless Agonal Devotion”), jaw-dropping fretboard wizardry that recalls Beneath the Massacre and pairs neatly with numbskull density (“Apocalypse Through Lysergic Possession”), while slam’s gurgling lurch a la Ingested adds nice sonic depravity (“Filleted and Fucked,” “Still Water Salvation”). Each member offers his best, the dual shrieks and roars commanding charisma, the guitars offering flaying technicality and caveman knuckle-dragging meatheadedness equally, bass holding up the sound amid the fray, and drums retain a sharp metallic ring that adds to the unhinged quality Psycho-Frame possesses.

For the same reasons, some will love Psycho-Frame, others will understandably loathe it. In many ways, it feels like the insanity of mid-2000s deathcore distilled into a bullying thirty-eight minutes. It’s relentless, it’s over-the-top, and perfect to make frowny faces at while you windmill your way through the pit. That being said, some parts of the album are guiltier than others: when groove dominates, the result is an insane little number, but when that’s toned down to channel Suicide Silence, it sounds pitifully stale (“The Portal,” “BLACK_WAVE II”). Furthermore, there are short-lived spoken word samples scattered throughout the album, which provide more of a blush than the creepiness factor they are attempting to instill. But apart from the nitpicks, for nearly all the reasons mentioned in the paragraph above, Salvation Laughs in the Face of a Grieving Mother can be the thorn in a metalhead’s side – Psycho-Frame is truly an apt representative of deathcore.

For better or worse, Psycho-Frame is deathcore, and it doesn’t pretend to be anything else. It’s big and dumb, overly loud and obnoxious, with enough groove, rawness, and wonky tricks to carry its dual vocal attack into something resembling enjoyment. It’s a low-ceiling, low-floor situation, because Salvation Laughs in the Face of a Grieving Mother can either bring some fun into your day or utterly ruin it. I had fun with Psycho-Frame because of its refreshing simplicity and relentless brutality – but it’s still a cautionary tale.

Rating: 3.0/5.0
DR: N/A | Format Reviewed:
Label: Sharptone Records
Websites: psychoframedc.bandcamp.com | psychoframe.com | facebook.com/psychoframedeathcore
Releases Worldwide: July 25th, 2025

#2025 #30 #AmericanMetal #BeneathTheMassacre #BlackTongue #BringMeTheHorizon #ChelseaGrin #Deathcore #Ingested #Jul25 #KillingOfASacredDeer #LornaShore #PsychoFrame #Review #Reviews #SalvationLaughsInTheFaceOfAGrievingMother #SharpToneRecords #SlammingDeathcore #SlaughterToPrevail #SuicideSilence #ThusSpokeZarathustra #Whitechapel

Psycho-Frame – Salvation Laughs in the Face of a Grieving Mother Review

By Dear Hollow

Deathcore doesn’t give a shit. There was a moment when bands like Lorna Shore and Slaughter to Prevail attempted to make deathcore more accessible to other metal fans, incorporating blackened/symphonic textures or nu-metal influences. However terrible, solid, milquetoast, or well-intentioned you found it, that’s not the spirit of deathcore. Psycho-Frame has steadily been building a fanbase around their particularly unhinged take on deathcore with the release of 2023 EPs Remote God Seeker and Automatic Death Protocol, and we’re finally faced with a full-length debut: Salvation Laughs in the Face of a Grieving Mother. But don’t expect heavyhandedness – expect just heavy. Dumb heavy. Basically, the music for the sellout. Get those fists swingin’, Hot Topic frequenters! We’re goin’ to the mall.

Psycho-Frame embodies a trend in deathcore that is layered in nostalgia. Fearing that the style has lost its teeth, bands like the nation-spanning six-piece1 embrace the days of MySpace (think old-school Chelsea Grin or Bring Me the Horizon). It’s raw, groovy, and devastating, brandishing a brand wavering between thick-ass breakdowns settling on the ocean floor and lightning-fast blastbeats and unhinged technical thrills. Psycho-Frame otherwise benefits from a two-vocal attack, with Mike Sugars relying on a tough Frankie Palmeri bark attack while Jonathan Whittle offers fierce shrieks, horrific bellows, and the occasional pig squeal. It’s big, dumb fun that doesn’t overstay its welcome, embracing a savage edge contrary to contemporary acts off the same ilk: the rawness of Killing of a Sacred Deer or the melodic technicality of Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Psycho-Frame emerges as the elite, its loud and ouchy production amped to louder and ouchier, its vocal attack barbaric and ominous, and its songwriting whiplash-inducing. It’s everything you love – and loathe – about deathcore.

There’s little nuance in Salvation Laughs – if it’s thoughtful songwriting and careful construction you’re after, Psycho-Frame ain’t it. It doesn’t have a lick of the tragedy its title implies because, remember, deathcore doesn’t give a shit. It recalls the chaos of This is Exile-era Whitechapel, The Cleansing-era Suicide Silence, or self-titled Chelsea Grin in its chunky viciousness and stonewalled rigidity. Neck-snapping tempo shifts are a norm, downtempo Black Tongue chugdowns assaulting your ears one second before ravaging them with ripping blastbeats and shredding riffs. Riffiness is a trait not often expounded upon by deathcore, but it appears often throughout Salvation Laughs, giving an unexpected head-bobbing groove and pinch harmonics (“Blueprints for Idol Genocide,” “Endless Agonal Devotion”), jaw-dropping fretboard wizardry that recalls Beneath the Massacre and pairs neatly with numbskull density (“Apocalypse Through Lysergic Possession”), while slam’s gurgling lurch a la Ingested adds nice sonic depravity (“Filleted and Fucked,” “Still Water Salvation”). Each member offers his best, the dual shrieks and roars commanding charisma, the guitars offering flaying technicality and caveman knuckle-dragging meatheadedness equally, bass holding up the sound amid the fray, and drums retain a sharp metallic ring that adds to the unhinged quality Psycho-Frame possesses.

For the same reasons, some will love Psycho-Frame, others will understandably loathe it. In many ways, it feels like the insanity of mid-2000s deathcore distilled into a bullying thirty-eight minutes. It’s relentless, it’s over-the-top, and perfect to make frowny faces at while you windmill your way through the pit. That being said, some parts of the album are guiltier than others: when groove dominates, the result is an insane little number, but when that’s toned down to channel Suicide Silence, it sounds pitifully stale (“The Portal,” “BLACK_WAVE II”). Furthermore, there are short-lived spoken word samples scattered throughout the album, which provide more of a blush than the creepiness factor they are attempting to instill. But apart from the nitpicks, for nearly all the reasons mentioned in the paragraph above, Salvation Laughs in the Face of a Grieving Mother can be the thorn in a metalhead’s side – Psycho-Frame is truly an apt representative of deathcore.

For better or worse, Psycho-Frame is deathcore, and it doesn’t pretend to be anything else. It’s big and dumb, overly loud and obnoxious, with enough groove, rawness, and wonky tricks to carry its dual vocal attack into something resembling enjoyment. It’s a low-ceiling, low-floor situation, because Salvation Laughs in the Face of a Grieving Mother can either bring some fun into your day or utterly ruin it. I had fun with Psycho-Frame because of its refreshing simplicity and relentless brutality – but it’s still a cautionary tale.

Rating: 3.0/5.0
DR: N/A | Format Reviewed:
Label: Sharptone Records
Websites: psychoframedc.bandcamp.com | psychoframe.com | facebook.com/psychoframedeathcore
Releases Worldwide: July 25th, 2025

#2025 #30 #AmericanMetal #BeneathTheMassacre #BlackTongue #BringMeTheHorizon #ChelseaGrin #Deathcore #Ingested #Jul25 #KillingOfASacredDeer #LornaShore #PsychoFrame #Review #Reviews #SalvationLaughsInTheFaceOfAGrievingMother #SharpToneRecords #SlammingDeathcore #SlaughterToPrevail #SuicideSilence #ThusSpokeZarathustra #Whitechapel

Whitechapel – Hymns in Dissonance Review

By Dear Hollow

If you’re new here, hi, I’m the sellout. I’m the man who murdered mountains and toppled empires. I’m the man who saw the standards of metal and leveled them with one swing of my hammer. I’m the fallen one, the one who dragged two other miscreants low on my scorched earth campaign in wretched defiance of the golden pantheons.1 If you’re new here, hi, I’m the guy who ranked Whitechapel. This review right here is an insult to AMG’s injury, a double take of a band whose reputation is soiled like the diaper in a millennial teenagers’ skinny jeans as his hair flaps back and forth in the moshpit before he eats shit. I’m the man who murdered mountains and toppled empires who’s back for more murderizing and toppling – because Whitechapel is back, baby.

Whitechapel has always exemplified the sellout of deathcore while also being a better version of it throughout the act’s nearly twenty-year career, flexibility ultimately providing the key to success. Contrary to the perpetual breakdowning of Suicide Silence or the complete abandonment of deathcore from Job for a Cowboy, the Knoxville collective has long relied on the charisma of frontman Phil Bozeman and a three-pronged guitar attack for its natural progressions. From clean vocals to muddy productions and beyond, Hymns in Dissonance comes at the end of a lyrically vulnerable, musically controversial era, promising the return to their bludgeoning roots. In this right, it definitely delivers.

Gone are the clean vocals and introspective lyrics of The Valley or Kin, and a return to the “loud and ouchy” steel-toed beatdowns of yore. Hymns in Dissonance does its best contemporary rendition of breakout album This is Exile, and with the lyrical return of religious criticism and murderizing, it sounds a lot like 2010’s A New Era of Corruption. Bozeman’s manic vocals guide the attack, wavering between rapid-fire lyrical sputtering and mammoth callouts, while instrumentals attack with far more vigor and fury than in its predecessor. The ebb and flow between the manic blastbeats and blazing riffs, ominous leads, and the devastating chugging weight is a well-featured asset (“A Visceral Retch,” “The Abysmal Gospel”), the one-two punches between riff-fests and thick breakdowns recalling This is Exile’s “Possession” (“Hate Cult Ritual,” “Bedlam”), with a tasteful measure of melody (“Mammoth God,” “Nothing is Coming for Any of Us”), everything about Hymns in Dissonance feels trademark Whitechapel.

Whitechapel’s return to roots, while competent and unruly, is limited by what has already been done and has difficulty establishing its next steps. The only new element is that Bozeman sports more of his mid-range fry vocals. More frustratingly, aside from the two formidably dynamic closers, no song touches the previously released singles (“Hymns in Dissonance,” “A Visceral Retch”), although a few fall short as less impactful versions of them (“Prisoner 666,” “Diabolic Slumber”). Hymns in Dissonance for its vast majority, pays homage to Whitechapel’s early career, just amps it in a way that recalls a faster A New Era of Corruption. This is why “Bedlam,” “Mammoth God,” and “Nothing is Coming for Any of Us” are the best tracks in Hymns in Dissonance, as their uses of cutthroat brutality contrasts with a natural dynamic songwriting that culminates in supremely tasteful solos and yearning chord progressions that make their ominous titles translate into tragedy rather than violence – although violence is certainly present.

Whitechapel is older and wiser but still pissed off. Hymns in Dissonance encapsulates everything about the band you loved/hated back in the mid-2000s, seeing no need to progress their sound or convince the naysayers. The album just feels like the band having fun creating the heavy deathcore songs without the gravity of its last two albums – with all the simplicity and flippancy that entails. It will not change your mind about Whitechapel, but will appeal to you if you liked it when Phil looked super possessed all the time. Hymns in Dissonance is by no means their best, but it doesn’t mean to be either. Yeah, it has its moments of bloat, unnecessariness, and chuggy cheese, but feel free to unearth those skinny jeans from the closet for the one-person mosh pit because it’s pure deathcore nostalgia.

Rating: 3.0/5.0
DR: 4 | Format Reviewed: 320 kb/s mp3
Label: Metal Blade Records
Websites: whitechapelmetal.bandcamp.com | whitechapelband.com | facebook.com/whitechapelband
Releases Worldwide: March 7th, 2025

Alekhines Gun

After a pair of albums which triggered superlatives ranging from “genre-transcending” to “emotive pile of wankery”, deathcore genre stalwarts Whitechapel began teasing their fanbase with four sacred words: “Back to Our Roots.” Beginning an early promo campaign with vocalist Phil Bozeman posting pictures of debut The Somatic Defilement, and leading into interviews with band members saying they wanted “to make deathcore scary again”, expectations have been set and the mouths of their fanbase have begun foaming – if not downright frothing – in anticipation. No acoustic guitars? No clean singing? No feelings? Is this the collection of hymns to carry deathcore to the church of wider genre acceptance? Wait, why are you laughing?

Hymns in Dissonance is a feral, monolithic slab of deathcore with nary a gimmick or guest instrument or crooned note to be found. Instead, what is offered up is an excellently refined, gloriously produced offering of bone-to-jell-o inducing, shoulder dislocating, windmill-triggering goodness. There are noodly leads (“Hymns in Dissonance”), human sounding drum fills, and breakdowns that seek to savage your vertebrae without devolving into lethargy-laced, mastodon-in-tar paced plods. Though no compositional ingredient comes as a surprise – there are still monster breakdowns, unnecessary slowdowns, and occasional gurgly overdoses – it’s hard to deny the sheer mastery of the elements Whitechapel put on display in composing such a violent release.

Songwriting reigns supreme, and it is here that Hymns in Dissonance excels. From the stage-ready permanent-show-opener-made “Prisoner 666” to the flirtations with beautiful melodies in “Mammoth God”; from the full on embrace of slammy excess in “The Abysmal Gospel” to the crowd chant inciting chorus of “Hate Cult Ritual”, much of the albums individual cuts work to distinguish and divide itself from its surroundings. This allows for Whitechapel to overcome deathcore’s greatest genre struggle: making a meaningful album with flow and pacing, rather than a mere collection of throw-down, brohuaha homicidal snapshots.

The songwriting wouldn’t be as impactful if it was castrated by the middle-era of Whitechapel production. Albums like Our Endless War traded in a tone that mixed all the instruments into the same bland, homogenous pitch, robbing them of their layering. Fortunately, Hymns in Dissonance co-opts the production style of Kin/The Valley and sounds fuller and more spacious than they have since the seminal A New Era of Corruption. Closing highlight “Nothing is Coming for Any of Us” slides from one of the more cement brick severing chugs into an almost triumphant, uplifting solo, while the darker, more visceral moments and the mix allows requisite breakdowns to summon all the instruments to converge on a single tone which is assuredly down with the thickness. Bozeman continues to be a vocal benchmark for the genre, oscillating between sewage-drenched gutturals and wonderfully enunciated blackened shrieks. True, he still yowls on more than the music calls for, but an increased skill in lyrical phrasing and tonal variance at least makes for a more engaging listen, particularly in an album that might put off some with the complete excision of cleans.

Though I have not courted the core in quite some time, I’m an ardent believer that no subgenre, from stoner doom to trance-djent, is utterly devoid of artistic merit when done well. Whitechapel have heeded this call with an impeccable album whose only major “flaw” is that the playing within the confines of its bloody, tropey sandbox is a feature – not a bug. Some may decry the lack of differential instrumentation as a step backward, but when considering the album among the trajectory of the band’s body of work, they couldn’t be more incorrect. A middle finger to a scene growing increasingly reliant on orchestral coverups and mindless atonal chugs in lieu of song structure, Hymns in Dissonance is indisputable quality for a genre that tends to be rejected wholesale by purists. Now open your redblack back hymnals, and let us sing…

Rating: 3.5/5

#2025 #30 #35 #AmericanMetal #Deathcore #HymnsInDissonance #JobForACowboy #Mar25 #MetalBladeRecords #Review #Reviews #SuicideSilence #Whitechapel

Whitechapel – Hymns in Dissonance Review

By Dear Hollow

If you’re new here, hi, I’m the sellout. I’m the man who murdered mountains and toppled empires. I’m the man who saw the standards of metal and leveled them with one swing of my hammer. I’m the fallen one, the one who dragged two other miscreants low on my scorched earth campaign in wretched defiance of the golden pantheons.1 If you’re new here, hi, I’m the guy who ranked Whitechapel. This review right here is an insult to AMG’s injury, a double take of a band whose reputation is soiled like the diaper in a millennial teenagers’ skinny jeans as his hair flaps back and forth in the moshpit before he eats shit. I’m the man who murdered mountains and toppled empires who’s back for more murderizing and toppling – because Whitechapel is back, baby.

Whitechapel has always exemplified the sellout of deathcore while also being a better version of it throughout the act’s nearly twenty-year career, flexibility ultimately providing the key to success. Contrary to the perpetual breakdowning of Suicide Silence or the complete abandonment of deathcore from Job for a Cowboy, the Knoxville collective has long relied on the charisma of frontman Phil Bozeman and a three-pronged guitar attack for its natural progressions. From clean vocals to muddy productions and beyond, Hymns in Dissonance comes at the end of a lyrically vulnerable, musically controversial era, promising the return to their bludgeoning roots. In this right, it definitely delivers.

Gone are the clean vocals and introspective lyrics of The Valley or Kin, and a return to the “loud and ouchy” steel-toed beatdowns of yore. Hymns in Dissonance does its best contemporary rendition of breakout album This is Exile, and with the lyrical return of religious criticism and murderizing, it sounds a lot like 2010’s A New Era of Corruption. Bozeman’s manic vocals guide the attack, wavering between rapid-fire lyrical sputtering and mammoth callouts, while instrumentals attack with far more vigor and fury than in its predecessor. The ebb and flow between the manic blastbeats and blazing riffs, ominous leads, and the devastating chugging weight is a well-featured asset (“A Visceral Retch,” “The Abysmal Gospel”), the one-two punches between riff-fests and thick breakdowns recalling This is Exile’s “Possession” (“Hate Cult Ritual,” “Bedlam”), with a tasteful measure of melody (“Mammoth God,” “Nothing is Coming for Any of Us”), everything about Hymns in Dissonance feels trademark Whitechapel.

Whitechapel’s return to roots, while competent and unruly, is limited by what has already been done and has difficulty establishing its next steps. The only new element is that Bozeman sports more of his mid-range fry vocals. More frustratingly, aside from the two formidably dynamic closers, no song touches the previously released singles (“Hymns in Dissonance,” “A Visceral Retch”), although a few fall short as less impactful versions of them (“Prisoner 666,” “Diabolic Slumber”). Hymns in Dissonance for its vast majority, pays homage to Whitechapel’s early career, just amps it in a way that recalls a faster A New Era of Corruption. This is why “Bedlam,” “Mammoth God,” and “Nothing is Coming for Any of Us” are the best tracks in Hymns in Dissonance, as their uses of cutthroat brutality contrasts with a natural dynamic songwriting that culminates in supremely tasteful solos and yearning chord progressions that make their ominous titles translate into tragedy rather than violence – although violence is certainly present.

Whitechapel is older and wiser but still pissed off. Hymns in Dissonance encapsulates everything about the band you loved/hated back in the mid-2000s, seeing no need to progress their sound or convince the naysayers. The album just feels like the band having fun creating the heavy deathcore songs without the gravity of its last two albums – with all the simplicity and flippancy that entails. It will not change your mind about Whitechapel, but will appeal to you if you liked it when Phil looked super possessed all the time. Hymns in Dissonance is by no means their best, but it doesn’t mean to be either. Yeah, it has its moments of bloat, unnecessariness, and chuggy cheese, but feel free to unearth those skinny jeans from the closet for the one-person mosh pit because it’s pure deathcore nostalgia.

Rating: 3.0/5.0
DR: 4 | Format Reviewed: 320 kb/s mp3
Label: Metal Blade Records
Websites: whitechapelmetal.bandcamp.com | whitechapelband.com | facebook.com/whitechapelband
Releases Worldwide: March 7th, 2025

Alekhines Gun

After a pair of albums which triggered superlatives ranging from “genre-transcending” to “emotive pile of wankery”, deathcore genre stalwarts Whitechapel began teasing their fanbase with four sacred words: “Back to Our Roots.” Beginning an early promo campaign with vocalist Phil Bozeman posting pictures of debut The Somatic Defilement, and leading into interviews with band members saying they wanted “to make deathcore scary again”, expectations have been set and the mouths of their fanbase have begun foaming – if not downright frothing – in anticipation. No acoustic guitars? No clean singing? No feelings? Is this the collection of hymns to carry deathcore to the church of wider genre acceptance? Wait, why are you laughing?

Hymns in Dissonance is a feral, monolithic slab of deathcore with nary a gimmick or guest instrument or crooned note to be found. Instead, what is offered up is an excellently refined, gloriously produced offering of bone-to-jell-o inducing, shoulder dislocating, windmill-triggering goodness. There are noodly leads (“Hymns in Dissonance”), human sounding drum fills, and breakdowns that seek to savage your vertebrae without devolving into lethargy-laced, mastodon-in-tar paced plods. Though no compositional ingredient comes as a surprise – there are still monster breakdowns, unnecessary slowdowns, and occasional gurgly overdoses – it’s hard to deny the sheer mastery of the elements Whitechapel put on display in composing such a violent release.

Songwriting reigns supreme, and it is here that Hymns in Dissonance excels. From the stage-ready permanent-show-opener-made “Prisoner 666” to the flirtations with beautiful melodies in “Mammoth God”; from the full on embrace of slammy excess in “The Abysmal Gospel” to the crowd chant inciting chorus of “Hate Cult Ritual”, much of the albums individual cuts work to distinguish and divide itself from its surroundings. This allows for Whitechapel to overcome deathcore’s greatest genre struggle: making a meaningful album with flow and pacing, rather than a mere collection of throw-down, brohuaha homicidal snapshots.

The songwriting wouldn’t be as impactful if it was castrated by the middle-era of Whitechapel production. Albums like Our Endless War traded in a tone that mixed all the instruments into the same bland, homogenous pitch, robbing them of their layering. Fortunately, Hymns in Dissonance co-opts the production style of Kin/The Valley and sounds fuller and more spacious than they have since the seminal A New Era of Corruption. Closing highlight “Nothing is Coming for Any of Us” slides from one of the more cement brick severing chugs into an almost triumphant, uplifting solo, while the darker, more visceral moments and the mix allows requisite breakdowns to summon all the instruments to converge on a single tone which is assuredly down with the thickness. Bozeman continues to be a vocal benchmark for the genre, oscillating between sewage-drenched gutturals and wonderfully enunciated blackened shrieks. True, he still yowls on more than the music calls for, but an increased skill in lyrical phrasing and tonal variance at least makes for a more engaging listen, particularly in an album that might put off some with the complete excision of cleans.

Though I have not courted the core in quite some time, I’m an ardent believer that no subgenre, from stoner doom to trance-djent, is utterly devoid of artistic merit when done well. Whitechapel have heeded this call with an impeccable album whose only major “flaw” is that the playing within the confines of its bloody, tropey sandbox is a feature – not a bug. Some may decry the lack of differential instrumentation as a step backward, but when considering the album among the trajectory of the band’s body of work, they couldn’t be more incorrect. A middle finger to a scene growing increasingly reliant on orchestral coverups and mindless atonal chugs in lieu of song structure, Hymns in Dissonance is indisputable quality for a genre that tends to be rejected wholesale by purists. Now open your redblack back hymnals, and let us sing…

Rating: 3.5/5

#2025 #30 #35 #AmericanMetal #Deathcore #HymnsInDissonance #JobForACowboy #Mar25 #MetalBladeRecords #Review #Reviews #SuicideSilence #Whitechapel

Whitechapel – Hymns in Dissonance Review

By Dear Hollow

If you’re new here, hi, I’m the sellout. I’m the man who murdered mountains and toppled empires. I’m the man who saw the standards of metal and leveled them with one swing of my hammer. I’m the fallen one, the one who dragged two other miscreants low on my scorched earth campaign in wretched defiance of the golden pantheons.1 If you’re new here, hi, I’m the guy who ranked Whitechapel. This review right here is an insult to AMG’s injury, a double take of a band whose reputation is soiled like the diaper in a millennial teenagers’ skinny jeans as his hair flaps back and forth in the moshpit before he eats shit. I’m the man who murdered mountains and toppled empires who’s back for more murderizing and toppling – because Whitechapel is back, baby.

Whitechapel has always exemplified the sellout of deathcore while also being a better version of it throughout the act’s nearly twenty-year career, flexibility ultimately providing the key to success. Contrary to the perpetual breakdowning of Suicide Silence or the complete abandonment of deathcore from Job for a Cowboy, the Knoxville collective has long relied on the charisma of frontman Phil Bozeman and a three-pronged guitar attack for its natural progressions. From clean vocals to muddy productions and beyond, Hymns in Dissonance comes at the end of a lyrically vulnerable, musically controversial era, promising the return to their bludgeoning roots. In this right, it definitely delivers.

Gone are the clean vocals and introspective lyrics of The Valley or Kin, and a return to the “loud and ouchy” steel-toed beatdowns of yore. Hymns in Dissonance does its best contemporary rendition of breakout album This is Exile, and with the lyrical return of religious criticism and murderizing, it sounds a lot like 2010’s A New Era of Corruption. Bozeman’s manic vocals guide the attack, wavering between rapid-fire lyrical sputtering and mammoth callouts, while instrumentals attack with far more vigor and fury than in its predecessor. The ebb and flow between the manic blastbeats and blazing riffs, ominous leads, and the devastating chugging weight is a well-featured asset (“A Visceral Retch,” “The Abysmal Gospel”), the one-two punches between riff-fests and thick breakdowns recalling This is Exile’s “Possession” (“Hate Cult Ritual,” “Bedlam”), with a tasteful measure of melody (“Mammoth God,” “Nothing is Coming for Any of Us”), everything about Hymns in Dissonance feels trademark Whitechapel.

Whitechapel’s return to roots, while competent and unruly, is limited by what has already been done and has difficulty establishing its next steps. The only new element is that Bozeman sports more of his mid-range fry vocals. More frustratingly, aside from the two formidably dynamic closers, no song touches the previously released singles (“Hymns in Dissonance,” “A Visceral Retch”), although a few fall short as less impactful versions of them (“Prisoner 666,” “Diabolic Slumber”). Hymns in Dissonance for its vast majority, pays homage to Whitechapel’s early career, just amps it in a way that recalls a faster A New Era of Corruption. This is why “Bedlam,” “Mammoth God,” and “Nothing is Coming for Any of Us” are the best tracks in Hymns in Dissonance, as their uses of cutthroat brutality contrasts with a natural dynamic songwriting that culminates in supremely tasteful solos and yearning chord progressions that make their ominous titles translate into tragedy rather than violence – although violence is certainly present.

Whitechapel is older and wiser but still pissed off. Hymns in Dissonance encapsulates everything about the band you loved/hated back in the mid-2000s, seeing no need to progress their sound or convince the naysayers. The album just feels like the band having fun creating the heavy deathcore songs without the gravity of its last two albums – with all the simplicity and flippancy that entails. It will not change your mind about Whitechapel, but will appeal to you if you liked it when Phil looked super possessed all the time. Hymns in Dissonance is by no means their best, but it doesn’t mean to be either. Yeah, it has its moments of bloat, unnecessariness, and chuggy cheese, but feel free to unearth those skinny jeans from the closet for the one-person mosh pit because it’s pure deathcore nostalgia.

Rating: 3.0/5.0
DR: 4 | Format Reviewed: 320 kb/s mp3
Label: Metal Blade Records
Websites: whitechapelmetal.bandcamp.com | whitechapelband.com | facebook.com/whitechapelband
Releases Worldwide: March 7th, 2025

Alekhines Gun

After a pair of albums which triggered superlatives ranging from “genre-transcending” to “emotive pile of wankery”, deathcore genre stalwarts Whitechapel began teasing their fanbase with four sacred words: “Back to Our Roots.” Beginning an early promo campaign with vocalist Phil Bozeman posting pictures of debut The Somatic Defilement, and leading into interviews with band members saying they wanted “to make deathcore scary again”, expectations have been set and the mouths of their fanbase have begun foaming – if not downright frothing – in anticipation. No acoustic guitars? No clean singing? No feelings? Is this the collection of hymns to carry deathcore to the church of wider genre acceptance? Wait, why are you laughing?

Hymns in Dissonance is a feral, monolithic slab of deathcore with nary a gimmick or guest instrument or crooned note to be found. Instead, what is offered up is an excellently refined, gloriously produced offering of bone-to-jell-o inducing, shoulder dislocating, windmill-triggering goodness. There are noodly leads (“Hymns in Dissonance”), human sounding drum fills, and breakdowns that seek to savage your vertebrae without devolving into lethargy-laced, mastodon-in-tar paced plods. Though no compositional ingredient comes as a surprise – there are still monster breakdowns, unnecessary slowdowns, and occasional gurgly overdoses – it’s hard to deny the sheer mastery of the elements Whitechapel put on display in composing such a violent release.

Songwriting reigns supreme, and it is here that Hymns in Dissonance excels. From the stage-ready permanent-show-opener-made “Prisoner 666” to the flirtations with beautiful melodies in “Mammoth God”; from the full on embrace of slammy excess in “The Abysmal Gospel” to the crowd chant inciting chorus of “Hate Cult Ritual”, much of the albums individual cuts work to distinguish and divide itself from its surroundings. This allows for Whitechapel to overcome deathcore’s greatest genre struggle: making a meaningful album with flow and pacing, rather than a mere collection of throw-down, brohuaha homicidal snapshots.

The songwriting wouldn’t be as impactful if it was castrated by the middle-era of Whitechapel production. Albums like Our Endless War traded in a tone that mixed all the instruments into the same bland, homogenous pitch, robbing them of their layering. Fortunately, Hymns in Dissonance co-opts the production style of Kin/The Valley and sounds fuller and more spacious than they have since the seminal A New Era of Corruption. Closing highlight “Nothing is Coming for Any of Us” slides from one of the more cement brick severing chugs into an almost triumphant, uplifting solo, while the darker, more visceral moments and the mix allows requisite breakdowns to summon all the instruments to converge on a single tone which is assuredly down with the thickness. Bozeman continues to be a vocal benchmark for the genre, oscillating between sewage-drenched gutturals and wonderfully enunciated blackened shrieks. True, he still yowls on more than the music calls for, but an increased skill in lyrical phrasing and tonal variance at least makes for a more engaging listen, particularly in an album that might put off some with the complete excision of cleans.

Though I have not courted the core in quite some time, I’m an ardent believer that no subgenre, from stoner doom to trance-djent, is utterly devoid of artistic merit when done well. Whitechapel have heeded this call with an impeccable album whose only major “flaw” is that the playing within the confines of its bloody, tropey sandbox is a feature – not a bug. Some may decry the lack of differential instrumentation as a step backward, but when considering the album among the trajectory of the band’s body of work, they couldn’t be more incorrect. A middle finger to a scene growing increasingly reliant on orchestral coverups and mindless atonal chugs in lieu of song structure, Hymns in Dissonance is indisputable quality for a genre that tends to be rejected wholesale by purists. Now open your redblack back hymnals, and let us sing…

Rating: 3.5/5

#2025 #30 #35 #AmericanMetal #Deathcore #HymnsInDissonance #JobForACowboy #Mar25 #MetalBladeRecords #Review #Reviews #SuicideSilence #Whitechapel

Whitechapel – Hymns in Dissonance Review

By Dear Hollow

If you’re new here, hi, I’m the sellout. I’m the man who murdered mountains and toppled empires. I’m the man who saw the standards of metal and leveled them with one swing of my hammer. I’m the fallen one, the one who dragged two other miscreants low on my scorched earth campaign in wretched defiance of the golden pantheons.1 If you’re new here, hi, I’m the guy who ranked Whitechapel. This review right here is an insult to AMG’s injury, a double take of a band whose reputation is soiled like the diaper in a millennial teenagers’ skinny jeans as his hair flaps back and forth in the moshpit before he eats shit. I’m the man who murdered mountains and toppled empires who’s back for more murderizing and toppling – because Whitechapel is back, baby.

Whitechapel has always exemplified the sellout of deathcore while also being a better version of it throughout the act’s nearly twenty-year career, flexibility ultimately providing the key to success. Contrary to the perpetual breakdowning of Suicide Silence or the complete abandonment of deathcore from Job for a Cowboy, the Knoxville collective has long relied on the charisma of frontman Phil Bozeman and a three-pronged guitar attack for its natural progressions. From clean vocals to muddy productions and beyond, Hymns in Dissonance comes at the end of a lyrically vulnerable, musically controversial era, promising the return to their bludgeoning roots. In this right, it definitely delivers.

Gone are the clean vocals and introspective lyrics of The Valley or Kin, and a return to the “loud and ouchy” steel-toed beatdowns of yore. Hymns in Dissonance does its best contemporary rendition of breakout album This is Exile, and with the lyrical return of religious criticism and murderizing, it sounds a lot like 2010’s A New Era of Corruption. Bozeman’s manic vocals guide the attack, wavering between rapid-fire lyrical sputtering and mammoth callouts, while instrumentals attack with far more vigor and fury than in its predecessor. The ebb and flow between the manic blastbeats and blazing riffs, ominous leads, and the devastating chugging weight is a well-featured asset (“A Visceral Retch,” “The Abysmal Gospel”), the one-two punches between riff-fests and thick breakdowns recalling This is Exile’s “Possession” (“Hate Cult Ritual,” “Bedlam”), with a tasteful measure of melody (“Mammoth God,” “Nothing is Coming for Any of Us”), everything about Hymns in Dissonance feels trademark Whitechapel.

Whitechapel’s return to roots, while competent and unruly, is limited by what has already been done and has difficulty establishing its next steps. The only new element is that Bozeman sports more of his mid-range fry vocals. More frustratingly, aside from the two formidably dynamic closers, no song touches the previously released singles (“Hymns in Dissonance,” “A Visceral Retch”), although a few fall short as less impactful versions of them (“Prisoner 666,” “Diabolic Slumber”). Hymns in Dissonance for its vast majority, pays homage to Whitechapel’s early career, just amps it in a way that recalls a faster A New Era of Corruption. This is why “Bedlam,” “Mammoth God,” and “Nothing is Coming for Any of Us” are the best tracks in Hymns in Dissonance, as their uses of cutthroat brutality contrasts with a natural dynamic songwriting that culminates in supremely tasteful solos and yearning chord progressions that make their ominous titles translate into tragedy rather than violence – although violence is certainly present.

Whitechapel is older and wiser but still pissed off. Hymns in Dissonance encapsulates everything about the band you loved/hated back in the mid-2000s, seeing no need to progress their sound or convince the naysayers. The album just feels like the band having fun creating the heavy deathcore songs without the gravity of its last two albums – with all the simplicity and flippancy that entails. It will not change your mind about Whitechapel, but will appeal to you if you liked it when Phil looked super possessed all the time. Hymns in Dissonance is by no means their best, but it doesn’t mean to be either. Yeah, it has its moments of bloat, unnecessariness, and chuggy cheese, but feel free to unearth those skinny jeans from the closet for the one-person mosh pit because it’s pure deathcore nostalgia.

Rating: 3.0/5.0
DR: 4 | Format Reviewed: 320 kb/s mp3
Label: Metal Blade Records
Websites: whitechapelmetal.bandcamp.com | whitechapelband.com | facebook.com/whitechapelband
Releases Worldwide: March 7th, 2025

Alekhines Gun

After a pair of albums which triggered superlatives ranging from “genre-transcending” to “emotive pile of wankery”, deathcore genre stalwarts Whitechapel began teasing their fanbase with four sacred words: “Back to Our Roots.” Beginning an early promo campaign with vocalist Phil Bozeman posting pictures of debut The Somatic Defilement, and leading into interviews with band members saying they wanted “to make deathcore scary again”, expectations have been set and the mouths of their fanbase have begun foaming – if not downright frothing – in anticipation. No acoustic guitars? No clean singing? No feelings? Is this the collection of hymns to carry deathcore to the church of wider genre acceptance? Wait, why are you laughing?

Hymns in Dissonance is a feral, monolithic slab of deathcore with nary a gimmick or guest instrument or crooned note to be found. Instead, what is offered up is an excellently refined, gloriously produced offering of bone-to-jell-o inducing, shoulder dislocating, windmill-triggering goodness. There are noodly leads (“Hymns in Dissonance”), human sounding drum fills, and breakdowns that seek to savage your vertebrae without devolving into lethargy-laced, mastodon-in-tar paced plods. Though no compositional ingredient comes as a surprise – there are still monster breakdowns, unnecessary slowdowns, and occasional gurgly overdoses – it’s hard to deny the sheer mastery of the elements Whitechapel put on display in composing such a violent release.

Songwriting reigns supreme, and it is here that Hymns in Dissonance excels. From the stage-ready permanent-show-opener-made “Prisoner 666” to the flirtations with beautiful melodies in “Mammoth God”; from the full on embrace of slammy excess in “The Abysmal Gospel” to the crowd chant inciting chorus of “Hate Cult Ritual”, much of the albums individual cuts work to distinguish and divide itself from its surroundings. This allows for Whitechapel to overcome deathcore’s greatest genre struggle: making a meaningful album with flow and pacing, rather than a mere collection of throw-down, brohuaha homicidal snapshots.

The songwriting wouldn’t be as impactful if it was castrated by the middle-era of Whitechapel production. Albums like Our Endless War traded in a tone that mixed all the instruments into the same bland, homogenous pitch, robbing them of their layering. Fortunately, Hymns in Dissonance co-opts the production style of Kin/The Valley and sounds fuller and more spacious than they have since the seminal A New Era of Corruption. Closing highlight “Nothing is Coming for Any of Us” slides from one of the more cement brick severing chugs into an almost triumphant, uplifting solo, while the darker, more visceral moments and the mix allows requisite breakdowns to summon all the instruments to converge on a single tone which is assuredly down with the thickness. Bozeman continues to be a vocal benchmark for the genre, oscillating between sewage-drenched gutturals and wonderfully enunciated blackened shrieks. True, he still yowls on more than the music calls for, but an increased skill in lyrical phrasing and tonal variance at least makes for a more engaging listen, particularly in an album that might put off some with the complete excision of cleans.

Though I have not courted the core in quite some time, I’m an ardent believer that no subgenre, from stoner doom to trance-djent, is utterly devoid of artistic merit when done well. Whitechapel have heeded this call with an impeccable album whose only major “flaw” is that the playing within the confines of its bloody, tropey sandbox is a feature – not a bug. Some may decry the lack of differential instrumentation as a step backward, but when considering the album among the trajectory of the band’s body of work, they couldn’t be more incorrect. A middle finger to a scene growing increasingly reliant on orchestral coverups and mindless atonal chugs in lieu of song structure, Hymns in Dissonance is indisputable quality for a genre that tends to be rejected wholesale by purists. Now open your redblack back hymnals, and let us sing…

Rating: 3.5/5

#2025 #30 #35 #AmericanMetal #Deathcore #HymnsInDissonance #JobForACowboy #Mar25 #MetalBladeRecords #Review #Reviews #SuicideSilence #Whitechapel

New Artist announced for Louder Than Life Festival 2025: 🔥 Whitechapel 🔥

🎶 Listen to the current LineUp on YouTube and Spotify: https://fyrefestivals.co
🎟️ Get your Tickets now: https://prf.hn/l/EJnYMdO

#Louder_Than_Life_Festival_2025 #Whitechapel #fyre_festivals #livemusic #youtube #spotify #music #musicfestivals #playlist #tickets #announcement

AMG Goes Ranking – Whitechapel

By Dear Hollow

The life of the unpaid, overworked metal reviewer is not an easy one. The reviewing collective at AMG lurches from one new release to the next, errors and n00bs strewn in our wake. But what if, once in a while, the collective paused to take stock and consider the discography of those bands that shaped many a taste? What if multiple aspects of the AMG collective personality shared with the slavering masses their personal rankings of that discography, and what if the rest of the personality used a Google sheet some kind of dark magic to produce an official guide to, and an all-around definitive aggregated ranking of, that band’s entire discography? Well, if that happened, we imagine it would look something like this…

Usually, when we do something like this, it increases our street cred in the underground, but I’m dead-set on ensuring our cred goes up in flames. This is Whitechapel, the epitome of why boomer metalheads yell at young ‘uns. For a hot minute, the Nashville juggernaut was ranked among the likes of Suicide Silence, Job for a Cowboy, and Carnifex, thanks to their brutalizing and divisive attack of deathcore. Toss in some lyrics about slaughtering prostitutes in 1880s London, and you’ve got yourself a recipe for millennial Hot Topic fandom.1 In retrospect, however, thanks to the act’s historic three-guitar attack and the iconic performances of vocalist Phil Bozeman, their whole “Cookie Monster with breakdowns” thing was a cut above the rest. I say that not just because I was a teen raised as an evangelical not allowed to listen to “This is Exile” and “Possession” (but secretly did anyway), although I’m sure that plays a very minor part.

Contrary to other long-running deathcore acts like Suicide Silence and Chelsea Grin, flexibility has been the key to Whitechapel’s longevity. Three distinct eras emerge: (1) deathcore for spooky Hot Topic frequenters (2006-2010), (2) chuggy minimalist deathcore (2012-2016),2 and (3) deathcore for Phil Bozeman to unpack personal traumas (2019-2021). With that, in anticipation for the upcoming “return to roots” release Hymns to Dissonance, let’s revisit the eight albums of Whitechapel, that deathcore band you stopped listening to because geezers said deathcore was lame.

– Dear Hollow

Dear Hollow

#8. The Somatic Defilement (2007) – The influence of this album cannot be understated, but its crisis of murky grime and polished clarity – with a never-again-addressed orchestral flare – makes Whitechapel’s first official foray a confused album, nonetheless worthy of the likes of Suicide Silence and Carnifex. Punishment front and center with a murderizing theme that reflected its Jack the Ripper-inspired moniker, there’s a lot of chunky breakdowns and Phil’s absolutely vicious vocals in their fledgling stage, reflected in chunky hatred (“Fairy Fay,” “Ear to Ear”) and shining riffage that cut through the murk (“Vicer Exciser”). Plenty gained with few highlights.

#7. Our Endless War (2014) – Located smack-dab between two other albums stuck in existential crisis, Our Endless War is the pinnacle of the whole cringeworthy “the saw is the law” schtick (sorry Sodom), paired with questionable production choices and simultaneously too much and too little Meshuggah-isms. While tracks like “Let Me Burn” and “Diggs Road” kick some serious ass, the album is doomed by excessive vocal layering and unnecessary songwriting choices. While it benefits most heartily from the three-guitar attack and feels the heftiest of its era, slow bruisers (“The Saw is the Law”) feel stuck in the dense muck and more allegro offerings (“Our Endless War,” “Mono”) can’t seem to keep up.

#6. Mark of the Blade (2016) – It’s not that this one is bad, but it’s often overshadowed by the album that emerged next, as “Bring Me Home” and “Decennium” introduced clean vocals. While retaining the saw imagery and three guitars layered for maximum heft, Mark of the Blade cleans up the obscene murk for a more organic and rhythmic album that is heavy on punishment (“The Void,” “Tremors,”), surprisingly catchy and anthemic in its structure (“Elitist Ones”), and experimental enough for a human touch (“Bring Me Home”). It’s the punchiest of its era, with drummer Ben Harclerode making his last appearance on a Whitechapel album.

#5. Whitechapel (2014) – A landmark album in its own right, this self-titled effort saw Whitechapel cutting the excess from their sound into a lean, mean, killing machine. Groove shining in the spotlight, its starkness allows more freedom, as tracks can delve into more ominous atmospheres and different instrumental tricks (“Make Them Bleed,” “I, Dementia”). However, like any good Whitechapel album, the triple-pronged groove aligns wonderfully with Phil Bozeman’s most menacing performance, descending the tracks into a nadir of darkness and Meshuggah-esque ferity (“Dead Silence,” “Devoid”). A start of a new era.

#4. Kin (2021) – Everything that made The Valley so effective, but with more of the Tennessee flair and a more polished feel. Whitechapel explores the cleanly sung and the wailing guitar solos, enacting a beautiful and yearning feel that doesn’t descend into the bleakness of its predecessor but rather looks upon it as lessons learned. It maintains heaviness even if it is less feral than much of its discography – all for the sake of emotion. With more of Bozeman’s cleans contrasting with that trademark density (“Anticure,” “History is Silent,” “Orphan”), an instrumental and technical theatricality (“Without Us,” “A Bloodsoaked Symphony”), and a slightly Tool-esque edge (“Lost Boy,” “Kin”), it leaves trauma and torture in the rearview.

#3. This is Exile (2008) – As the only album more popular than The Somatic Defilement, it gets extra points for its influence – but the mania at its core has never quite been replicated. While its predecessor had enough chunky breakdowns to kill a grown elephant and This is Exile has its fair share of mindless chug (“Possession,” “Somatically Incorrect”), a palpable groove and wild technicality keeps things both grounded and utterly batshit (“Father of Lies,” “To All That Are Dead”). Yes, the back half finds itself dwelling more in hellish menace than punishment (“Death Becomes Him,” “Messiahbolical”), but for many an introduction to Bozeman’s unmistakable roar and a chaotic technicality that left Suicide Silence in the dust, it was pure deathcore nirvana.

#2. A New Era of Corruption (2010) – While not as popular as This is Exile, A New Era of Corruption is everything its predecessor was and more. Whitechapel amps the dystopian and anti-religious themes with a stunning blend of its early era colossal chunk and a good use of techy leads and dissonant swells, as tracks feel more mature, fleshed out, and purposeful (“Breeding Violence,” “End of Flesh”), the darkness of progress’ terrible cost seeping through (“The Darkest Day of Man,” “Necromechanical”), and a chunky charisma not unlike The Acacia Strain (“Reprogrammed to Hate,” “Murder Sermon”3). A New Era of Corruption was the pinnacle of Whitechapel before its self-titled reinvention.

#1. The Valley (2019) – Bozeman’s cleans in The Valley were a landmark in deathcore’s storied and bloody history, but more impressive is that Whitechapel remained remarkably deathcore – if not more devastating – in spite of them. Cutthroat brutality remained first and foremost, with shredding guitars filling every emotional crevasse (“Forgiveness is Weakness,” “Brimstone,” “Black Bear”), while clean vocals are used as moments of yearning vulnerability and hopelessness (“When a Demon Defiles a Witch,” “Hickory Creek,” “Third Depth”) and apathetic sprawls of godless wilderness reflect an existential emptiness (“We Are One,” “Doom Woods”). It’s an unflinching discussion of pain and trauma in the derelict corners of Tennessee and a vintage horror movie aesthetic that meshes surprisingly perfectly. The Valley is a balancing act of vicious and heartfelt, a monument for deathcore and -core styles in general, seeing Whitechapel’s longevity fully established. Every emotion on the spectrum is present on The Valley, an outstretched hand shrouded by the weight of doom and dread.

Alekhines Gun

For many, deathcore represents the gateway drug to heavy music, enjoyed in your youth before you mature into “real metal” proper, discarding breakdowns and angsty lyrics for reflections on the time signatures of the universe and bigger song structures. Not so, say Whitechapel. Since erupting from the ether in 2006 and dropping their first album a mere year later, this band has remained a fixture in the metal world at large, ever growing in popularity and under the disapproving eyes of genre purists everywhere. Tours opening for the likes of Cannibal Corpse and The Black Dahlia Murder while having such luminaries as Cattle Decapitation and Archspire opening for them have established them as breakdown-heaving mainstays in a world of vests and guitar solos. To celebrate their newest release, we have opted to don our Wvmps and Pvsers hats and rank their discog for your disapproval. You gosh darn elitist ones…

#8. Our Endless War – The last descent into full-on arena-bent mindless groove, Our Endless War finds Whitechapel spinning their wheels with gleeful abandon. Any sense of techy approaches or interesting guitar was stripped down, in favor of a continued distillation of simplistic grooves over Meshuggah-In-Denial tones. Buoyed by the smash hit “The Saw is The Law” – essentially the “Living on a Prayer” of deathcore – Our Endless War is bland, inoffensive, and an easy choice for the bottom of the list. It’s catchy enough – a smooth, sanded-down object of easy grooves and basic-tier breakdowns with Bozeman’s vocals drowning out the riffs as if to hide how boring they are. Tailormade for an alternate universe where heavy music is played in elevators, Our Endless War is bland, easily digestible comfort food.

#7. Mark of the Blade – Still overly polished, still easy-listening, Mark of the Blade at least flows better as an entire album rather than merely being a factory-assembled collection of grooves. Here, the first merciful signs of restlessness in the Whitechapel camp began to be felt. “Dwell in the Shadows” and “Brotherhood” broke out some swell guitar playing, which was almost entirely lacking in Our Endless War, while “Bring Me Home” finally debuted those Heckin’GoshDarn clean vocals and much more dynamic songwriting. It helps that they managed to write a second “The Saw is The Law” in “The Mark of the Blade” to keep their ability for instant catchiness on display. All in all, Mark of the Blade manages to be slightly more interesting than its predecessor, as well as be the bookend of one era for Whitechapel while ushering in the next.

#6. The Somatic Defilement – This is a fun debut ruined by some moderately whack production. Much deathcore at the time had a strange predilection for light switch-click sounding drums and guitar tones thick as plywood, and just as crunchy. The Somatic Defilement overcomes this on the strength of its songwriting. Already avoiding the dubstep style tension-build-and-release permeating breakdowns, Whitechapel emerged from the nothingness fully formed and with a set musical vision. Its youthfulness overcomes its tonal flaws, and its roughhewn edges stand as a stark contrast to what would come later.

#5. The Valley – The first major shift in the Whitechapel sound since their self-titled, The Valley sees the band putting on the closest thing they had to prog boots. Featuring oodles and stroodles of emotive (though unfairly derided as emo) clean singing, acoustic passages and honest-to-goodness ballads, the band attempt to take the listener on a musical journey rather than merely offer up a collection of violent snippets. Songs like “Third Depth” tries to mesh the disparaging sounds with mixed results, while bouncing between tracks like “Forgiveness is Weakness” and “Hickory Creek” keep the listener in a state of tonal whiplash. Not quite as consistent as what would come later, The Valley is still an interesting addition to the Whitechapel canon for its efforts, if not quite its delivery.

#4. Whitechapel – On the heels of a pair of monster successes, the self-titled dropped and announced an immediate bid for stardom. Gone were much of the techy nuances and songwriting that actually used three guitar players, opting instead for immediate savagery and accessibility. On the other hand, this newfound sense of immediacy allowed for an excellent sense of hooks, with their old flair boiled down to moments littering songs. Bouncy leads in “Section 8” and harmonized breakdowns in “Dead Silence” showed the band hadn’t forgotten to imbibe songs with flourish and flavor, a skill that would quickly fade out as they continued their ascent to bigger and basic things. Easily the best of the middle era of albums.

#3. This is Exile – The Certified Hood Classic, this album dropped and almost instantly defined what deathcore was supposed to be. A massive sounding album in both writing and by production values of the time, This Is Exile demonstrated fantastic growth in musical writing chops and performances. Solos rip and shred, breakdowns are creatively inserted and (mostly) avoid walk-in-place stereotypes, and each song comes with personality and pizzazz. Touring it for an anniversary with The Black Dahlia Murder showed that the compositions still hit just as hard today, reminding that deathcore as a genre can be intelligent and engaging.

#2. Kin – A fantastic sequel, Kin grasps the mood swung for by The Valley and usurps it in every way. “To the Wolves” assault with peak modern era violence, while the flow into softer moments and use of cleans are much more organically blended. Higher use of melodic leads and atmospheric layering’s allowed the beauty to shine with the brutality, and the closing title tracks fantastic power ballad transition into synth-laden classic rock styled soloing represents everything The Valley wanted to be. Much more enjoyable as a full body of music rather than a collection of tracks, Kin sees Whitechapel grasping their musical vision in the fullest sense, with an excellent display of vulnerability and pathos littered among trademark forehead-shattering groove.

#1. A New Era of Corruption – Criminally overlooked by fans, criminally neglected in setlist selections, A New Era of Corruption is one of the greatest records in the genre. Taking every skillset from This Is Exile and cranking it up to eleven, this album finds Whitechapel operating at a peak they have yet to return to since. All three guitarists are on full display in the compositions; the breakdowns hit harder, the leads are techier, and the production actually sounds like a full band. Flirting with borderline Nile atmospherics in “Breeding Violence” and full on cinematic flirtations in “Unnerving”, 2010 saw Whitechapel at the peak of their powers, experimenting and tinkering and constantly challenging themselves to write better, bigger, and meaner. A genuine benchmark for the sound of deathcore, listeners can only hope for an eventual return to this ruthless display of excellent musicianship marred with ear-gauge shattering blunt force trauma. If you haven’t listened to this album in a while, you owe it to yourself to give it a spin.

Iceberg

I’m a core kid at heart; it was one of my gateway drugs into metal. While Whitechapel lived on the periphery of my metal consumption for my formative years, the combination of 2019’s The Valley and the pandemic gave me the drive and time to dig into their entire catalogue. Since then I’ve always had a soft spot for the Knoxville sextet, and deathcore in general. There’s something about knuckle-dragging breakdowns, whiplash tempo shifts, and gurgly vocals that lights a fire in my icy core. And as one of AMG‘s official deathcore apologists, I jumped – nay, catapulted myself – at the opportunity to ride Hollow‘s rickety train to breakdown town.

#8. Mark of the Blade (2016) – Mark of the Blade marks the end of Whitechapel’s more-metal-than-deathcore era, and showcases a band running low on creative fuel. What’s put on record is the most radio-ready, sanitized version of Whitechapel, and time hasn’t been too gentle with her caresses. The proximity to Slipknot-esque nu-metal is at its most blatant, the breakdowns are toothless, and the songwriting feels like the band is spinning their saws for the third album in a row. Phil’s cleans make their first appearance in “Bring Me Home” and “Decennium,” and while they’re a harbinger of things to come, they feel sorely out of place here and don’t do much to right the ship.

#7. Our Endless War (2014) – Smack in the middle of the band’s metalcore period, OEW doesn’t feel as phoned in as Mark of the Blade, but loses some of the snarling intensity of the self-titled release. Saws are beginning to spin. Anthemic choruses are beginning to rely on the tired trope of repeating the song’s title. Breakdowns feel more at home at Knotfest than Summer Slaughter. The album has its moments, though; “Worship the Digital Age” is a bit on-the-nose but an earworm, and “Diggs Road” is a strong closer that presents one of the album’s best melodic material in its fist-raising chorus. But against what has been, and what’s to come, Our Endless War fades into the background.

#6. The Somatic Defilement (2007) – Grimy, grindy, blood-soaked, and slammy, Whitechapel’s debut showcases all the hallmarks of turn-of-the-century deathcore with the production of a greenhorn band (especially those drums). But the hunger of a young band is real; the bpm is redlined, the breakdowns are ignorant and prolific, and Phil’s vocals are at their most porcine and guttural. Tracks like “Prostatic Fluid Asphyxiation” and “Vicer Exciser” still hang with the best of them in terms of sheer stankface headbangability. While it lacks in the way of diversity, The Somatic Defilement’s charm has aged like fine hobo wine, and it steadily climbed this list the more I revisited it. In some ways this is Whitechapel at their most genuine.

#5. Whitechapel (2012) – Arguably the most transitional of all Whitechapel albums, the self-titled release sees the band with one foot in ragged deathcore roots and another in the sleek, modern production of metalcore. Tracks like “Hate Creation,” “Section 8,” and “Possibilities of an Impossible Existence” still snap necks and crush spines, but there are changes bubbling beneath. There are more breaks from the onslaught; a piano introduction here, washy acoustic guitar there, tempos dipping below breakneck speed. Overall, Whitechapel ends up being workmanlike, middle-aged deathcore, selling you exactly what it advertises.

#4. Kin (2021) – If it ain’t broke, why fix it? Whitechapel smartly took The Valley’s formula and ran with it, crafting a sequel that seamlessly moves from it’s predecessor (from a lyrical perspective – literally), while doing their best to improve on an already formidable blueprint. While Phil’s clean vocals have never sounded better, they can be too much of a good thing, with parts of the album sagging under the weight of these relaxed vocal passages (“Anticure,” “Orphan”). The bookend tracks are deserving of all-time playlist status, as is mid-album burner “To The Wolves,” but there’s a whiff of filler and a lack of brutality on Kin that keeps it from the lofty highs of The Valley. A fitting closer to a sordid tale but a solid middleweight in the band’s discography.

#3. This Is Exile (2008) – If The Somatic Defilement is the wind-up, This Is Exile is the body blow. Whitechapel burst forth in their second full-length effort – a full-throated refutation of the sophomore slump – as a true blue deathcore outfit in complete possession of their faculties. Solving the production problem of their debut makes This Is Exile a much more satisfactory listenable, and subsequently, this the best example of Whitechapel’s core sound. No envelopes are being pushed here, but the package is stuffed to the brim with quality. The one-two punch of “Father of Exile” and “This Is Exile” chug and blast their way through your brain stem, right up until they wrap their wretched mitts around your throat for the ubiquitous–if not a bit overdone here–breakdown. While “Possession” foreshadows the band’s metalcore meanderings to come, this album is so firmly cemented in early aught’s deathcore that it’s impossible to classify as anything else.

#2. A New Era of Corruption (2010) – If This Is Exile is the body blow, then A New Era of Corruption is the haymaker. ANEoC takes the deathcore template perfected on This Is Exile and pushes its brutality to new limits. The end result is an embarrassment of riches for fans of the heyday of deathcore that wields rather than relies on the breakdown. “End of Flesh” might be one of my all-time favorite Whitechapel tunes, perfectly reining in the feral instincts of earlier records while retaining their ferocity inside a clear song structure. The dissolution of the final breakdown into a distant snare drum shows an attention to detail as of yet unseen in the band’s discography. With very little fat to trim, and a tight production job that stops just short of the dreaded sheen (see the self-titled album), ANEoC is the most musically mature record Whitechapel ever put out. That is, until…

#1. The Valley (2019) – I’m not sure anyone really saw The Valley coming. Whitechapel must have, because they clearly gave shit a good shake up. Deathcore purists should stop reading here; I decree this album as nothing short of a revelation. From the dusty acoustic guitars ushering the album in and out to the much-improved clean vocals and storytelling, Whitechapel bolstered nearly every aspect of their sound. Smartly returning to his concept album roots, Phil’s deeply personal and tragic story of family gone wrong breathes new life into Whitechapel’s modus operandi and cleverly shows just how far the band has come from their razorwire days. I reserve special praise for session drummer extraordinaire Navene Koperweis, who takes an already impressive history of Whitechapel drumming and enhances it with unique, progressive instincts. The album rides the sweet spot between tension and release, with just enough old school piss ‘n vinegar marching alongside the more contemplative, wizened moments (something Kin failed to achieve). The Valley is a stunning opus from a band newly emerged from their chrysalis, a dark and wounded creature that’s transcended the deathcore label and become something wholly different.

AMG’s Official Ranking:

Possible points: 24

#8. Our Endless War (2014) 5 points

#7. The Somatic Defilement (2007) 6 points

#6. Mark of the Blade (2016) 7 points

#5. Whitechapel (2012) 13 points

#4. Kin (2021) 17 points

#3. This is Exile (2008) 18 points

#2. The Valley (2019) 20 points

#1. A New Era of Corruption (2010) 22 points

Wanna feel like a scene kid again? Check out our expert picks for your own personal sellout:

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