Reviews

Before I write this review I need to inform you that I've pretty much moved on from this type of music, and very rarely do I find a good metalcore/deathcore album. The genre has just become too over-saturated for my taste. This band is a pretty good example of this fact. That being said, I heard Whitechapel's first release, Somatic Defilement about half a year before this album was released. I thought it was decent, nothing really worth more than a listen or two; it was a bit too repetitive and predictable. I was hoping that getting signed to Metal Blade would only help this band develop into something better. I couldn't have been more mistaken.

This album can be summed up by the first 15 seconds of the first song, "Father of Lies": blast beat, breakdown, repeat. I really don't understand this genre anymore - almost every single band sounds the exactly same. This has been done for like five years now and hasn't really gotten any better than the Job for a Cowboy Doom EP. And just to add to my lack of interest, they have three guitar players. You don't need three guitar players to play chugs. The decent metal parts are ruined by the constant need to sound generic. The drumming is what you would expect, fast and talented, but nothing that makes me go, "Man this doesn't sound like 4,000 other bands." Instead of doing something new, this band just makes me even happier that I no longer listen to this music near as much as I used to.

Don't get me wrong, this album is very heavy and defiantly loud. It just has no variance or originality. The singer also just bores me; he doesn't have much range in his voice, just the same death metal low growl. He attempts to have a high scream, but it never really makes its way to the listener past all of the lows. The album is almost forty-five minutes long and honestly, it's very hard to get all the way through it and still be in the room.