Whitechapel - Hymns in Dissonance (ALBUM REVIEW)
Release date: March 7th, 2025 (via Metal Blade Records)
What would you know? Whitechapel has gone back to being filthy!
Anybody still remembers when people were slamming on the band (along with other bands and their releases, man the mid-2010s was something huh?) for introducing clean vocals to their sound in “Mark of the Blade”? Well, I know I do, and to be honest, I get it: that one is often considered the band’s worst album, with hollow production and painfully uninspired groove/death metal-esque songwriting (which first happened in their self-titled album, but I think nobody really noticed it when that came out) that made them sound like more or less a heavier Slipknot.
Okay, now what about the surprise of the ones who scoffed at that notion when they drove themselves further into that more mellow territory then gave us “The Valley” and “Kin” back-to-back - which is arguably two of the best-written albums in the later half of their career up until this point? Yep.
N.B.: Yes, I did say what I said.
Both the band’s less-than-ideal track record in the 2010s and the progressive edge to their red-and-blue progressive matched set that made us (or just me, who knows?), for at least a good minute, sort of forgot about the sound that propelled them into the mainstream in the very first place: the bone-crushing, jarring deathcore sound and - how can we not bring this up - those dirty, dirty, dirty lows from Phil Bozeman, especially the one halfway through of “Devirgination Studies” from their debut “The Somatic Defilement”.
And let’s be real, we were all, to varying degrees, blindsided by this “back-to-the-roots” move of the band. I mean, they’re certainly not the only band who has made that kind of statement in one way or another, however given how good as well as commercially successful the last two albums were, perhaps the people were expecting something along the similar line from them.
Well, now Whitechapel is back to making deathcore. Like, actual deathcore, not the mind-numbingly trite nü-infused stuffs nor the ultra-generic kind that’s overly-compensated with (synth) symphonic sections to mask the inane riffs and structures - both having the (dis)pleasure of serving as a platform for absurdly try-hard vocals in common - of today that we have honestly grown sick of.
You know who you are.
Riddle me this: when was the last time you heard deathcore being true to its name, that is, being simply an infusion of death metal and hardcore? For me, it’s when I put on “Hymns in Dissonance” for the first time. But before that? Fucked if I know, ten years ago maybe? This album, it follows the “death metal + hardcore = deathcore” formula to an absolute T, but to say that it ends there would be a massive oversimplification. There is, surprisingly, a whole lot to unpack when it comes to this 43-minute megalith.
The first half of “Hymns in Dissonance”, the death metal part, remains quite close to the 2010s era of the band, signified with groovy, slamming riffs backed by the earth-shaking low-end: if I must compare, it’s perhaps the closest to the style of the “Our Endless War” era. That said, there are also moments, such as in one of their singles “A Visceral Retch”, where the band kicks it up a notch and calls back to something akin to the “Kill” days of Cannibal Corpse. The more melodic choices reminiscent of “Valley”/”Kin”, are also utilized here, with a good representation of it in the closer “Nothing Is Coming for Any of Us”.
The other half of the album (also my favorite half in it), which is - of course - the hardcore element, marked by the relentless d-beats and breakneck riffage from the Wade-Savage-Householder trio, is pushed so far that we can safely call a significant chunk of the album “grindcore”, if not at parts “goregrind”: track #7 “The Abysmal Gospel” serves as the prime example of the (power)violence that Whitechapel dishes out here: the HM-2 chugging in the intro and the outro section of this track scream Nails, Wormrot, and Sex Prisoner.
But then again, if Whitechapel claims that their new material is their heaviest yet, it would be a crime not to include the nasty, IQ-dropping sound of their first few albums. Fortunately, there’s plenty of it in this album, and this time around, they sound pleasantly rejuvenated in their brutal ground n’ pound: the breakdowns, even the one in the title track which sounds dangerously close to some of the stuffs from bands in recent years, sound anything but rote, and Phil - now back to the ultra-punishing style of vocals - firmly reasserts himself with his best vocal showcase hitherto, without even trying too much or making it overwhelming - reminding us why the forefathers of modern extreme vocals such as himself or Travis Ryan of Cattle Decapitation are the best in the game.
The question now remains: is “Hymn of Dissonance” the best Whitechapel album the band has ever released? To be completely honest, that can’t be answered: despite how well-written it is, if we consider the stylistic shifts they have taken in their almost 20-year career and how different the last two albums sound, it’s incomparable. But if we ask “Is it the best deathcore album Whitechapel has ever released?” then the answer is definitely “yes”. The Knoxville veterans have indubitably delivered an album that is true to their words: a titanic slab of extreme metal that puts everyone - naysayers and the youngblood competition that’s trying to take the crown alike - in their places.