After bursting on the scene with their 2007 debut, The Somatic Defilement, Tennessee’s Whitechapel quickly rose to the top of deathcore hierarchy with the follow-up, This Is Exile, in 2008, still a classic in the genre all these years later. However, subsequent albums like Our Endless War, Whitechapel, Mark of the Blade, and A New Era of Corruption were a bit more divisive as the band explored their sound and got a little more groove heavy and dare I say, commercial.

However, with 2019s The Valley, vocalist Phil Bozeman, bared his soul with a concept album of drug and physical abuse growing up in rural Tennessee. And the album reflected this change with a deeply personal, developed sound that showed a much more introspective but cathartic Whitechapel, complete with clean vocals, though still managing to retain their extremity, and the album was widely lauded. Follow up Kin, was again conceptual, (though more supernatural in scope), but even more restrained.

So when the band dropped their first single from Hymns in Dissonance, “A Visceral Retch”, it shook the deathcore fanbase to its core as it was arguably one of the heaviest things the band has ever done. And people wondered were Whitechapel going back to their heavier roots?

The answer is a resounding, teeth rattling, bowel shaking YES.

“A Visceral Retch” isn’t even the heaviest song on Hymns in Dissonance, a concept album about a religious, murderous cult. And it is the heaviest album of their career, and yes, that includes This is Exile. After 5 albums with producers Mark Lewis, guitarist Zach Householder has taken over production duties, and good Christ is this a beefy album. You can actually feel the three guitarists finally (one of my complaints about the band’s since their inception). Also, Bozeman has dropped the clean vocals, and of course delivers a simply feral performance, with his low bellows being some of the best in the genre, that is still being mimicked to death.

Musically, the album is fucking relentless, with “A Visceral Retch” certainly being the measuring stick for the album’s sheer, bludgeoning intensity that blasts and breakdowns with total abandon. Tracks like the opener “Prisoner 666”,  the title track,  “The Abysmal Gospel” (with a devastating opening riff that feels like an HM2 homage that could have come from an Entrails album), “Hate God Ritual” (which will have you chantng, “we hunt, we kill, we feast, we conquer” – something the lady sitting me next to me on a recent flight, didn’t appreciate I’m sure), “Mammoth God”,  and “Nothing Is Coming for Any of Us” match or even top “A Visceral Retch” in sheer brutality. 

But seeing you are reading a Whitechapel review, you are here for the breakdowns aren’t you? Fear not, Whitechapel still deliver utterly devastating grooves and breakdowns in spades. While certainly all the songs will shake your being, the opener “Prisoner 666”, “A Visceral Retch”, “Diabolic Slumber” (which gives “A Visceral Retch” a run for the album’s heaviest track), and monstrously groovy “Bedlam”, all made made me exclaim “OOF that’s heavy” out loud.

And while the album certainly is nowhere near as restrained and introspective as the last two efforts, lead guitarist Ben Savage adds some really nice leads, notably towards the album end with “Mammoth God”, and closer “Nothing Is Coming For Any of  Us”, which comes closest to the last two albums more moody, atmospheric vibe. 

Hymns In Dissonance, like This Is Exile all those years ago, has set the bar for modern deathcore and shows that Whitechapel didn’t go soft after all and returned with the heaviest album of their career.

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