Whitechapel - Hymns in Dissonance

Angry Metal Guy 60

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.

Hymns in Dissonance by Whitechapel

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

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