Whitechapel is a band that has long shaken the shackles of their deathcore tag. As far back as 2016’s Mark of The Blade they have been experimenting with and expanding their sound. The inclusion of clean vocals into the band’s sound led to a divisive outcry from their fans. This culminated in the release of bands most accessible album Kin in 2021.
Hymns in Dissonance feels like an extreme reaction to the reception that previous album received. This feels like a band challenging themselves to see if that old heavy sound is still in them, but it also feels like a response to those fans who claimed the band had sold out.
I’ll not beat around the bush here. This is a vicious, violent and unrelenting album from top to bottom. Whitechapel have never sounded this ferocious, nightmarish and so apocalyptically brutal. You wanted heavy again…well buckle the fuck up.
There is a story that runs through this album, but unlike a lot of concept albums, it doesn’t tie itself up in knots by slavishly following it. It works as a companion piece to This Is Exile as it references and brings back a particular character from that album into the story of this one. 7 of the album’s tracks represent each of the deadly sins and how they manifest throughout this story. There’s cults, murder, demons, end of the world type stuff…You know all the fun things you want in your Death Metal.
The title track & A Visceral Retch were perfect aperitif for the full length. Dragging you by the throat back into the Whitechapel sound of old. Diabolic Slumber is a pummeling curb stomp to the skull. Ex Infernis, the album’s middle point is a tribalistic ritual instrumental that gives you pause before the second half of the album kicks your teeth in.
Hate Cult Ritual with its repeated mantra of “We Hunt, We Kill, We Feast, We Conquer” has a bug eyed menace to it, that feels like Morbid Angel covering Lamb of God… The Abysmal Gospel is a schizophrenic piece of thrashed out death metal played at a speed that would make Sonic the Hedgehog concerned.
Bedlam is a downtuned beatdown from the bowels of hell itself. Phil Bozeman sounds like he is channeling several demonic deities at once with his inhuman gymnastics. It’s one of the album’s standout moments that will cave in skulls and crumble venue walls live.
Mammoth God & Nothing Is Coming for Any of Us are two of the most epic songs Whitechapel has ever written. The former of which is all stomp and sinister swagger, featuring one of the records hardest line “I Am the Mammoth God…I am the slayer of gods…” The latter of the two feels like the end of the world itself. Paranoid, chaotic urgency in its first half gives way to some fretboard mastery, and one of the most melodic and unforgettable guitar lines they have ever written, as the track slowly fades its way out, bringing the album to a close. The nightmare is over.
Hymns in Dissonance is an intense and extremely gratifying listen. Whitechapel has always been one of the best bands to come out of their generation of Deathcore/Death Metal depending on how you choose to categorise them. They are certainly one of the most interesting. Based on their last couple of releases I’m not sure many were expecting such a horrifying & extreme return to a sound many had thought the band had long abandoned.
This is the album that should put Whitechapel back on a lot of people’s radar, while those who have stayed the course will be richly rewarded. This is the sound of a band coming full circle, creating a masterwork of malevolent intent and precision execution.
Hymns of Dissonance is out on March 7th, 2025 via Metal Blade. For more information & pre orders head here
