Band: Whitechapel
Album: Recorrupted EP
Release year: 2011
Genre: Deathcore
Br00t4lz
It all starts off well – industrial noise and distant drums, before a screamed out line that lets out the power of the band.
Chunky triggered bass drum pounds, meaty guitars and a wall of bass smashing through breakdowns every few seconds is probably the best description of the first song. Some old school death metal influences are obvious when you focus on the vocal rhythms and the frequent chaotic drum and guitar sections but, musically, most of the first song hints at the more modern approach to metal –breakdowns and repetition. The riffs are simplistic and nothing much stands out. This definitely isn’t a bad thing, though, as the song was clearly designed to just be one of those that you stick on to smash some things up (and maybe have enough time after to look at some more holes to put in your ear). A decent song, I guess – not normally my thing, but I can appreciate it.
The next song is a cover of “Strength Beyond Strength”. Things picked up for me when this came on, despite me not liking Pantera. The song starts briefly, with a fast riff before everything joins in with immediate vocals. Everything feels a lot faster than in the first song. The changes in rhythm at the end of certain phrases make this song a lot more listenable and varied. The song breaks for a slow guitar riff to be played before there’s a bass drop underneath everything coming in for it all to plod steadily in a totally headbangable/nod-able section, which was sexy as hell. The bass drum is chunky and really punches you in the stomach. The drums pick up with some blast beats, which get totally wasted, because of the disappointing lack of guitar riff variety. There’s a slow, evil solo that comes next, though it’s very simple – too much for me to really call it one – more of just a little melody, but it sounded good. The song then speeds up with a nice flicker of blasts before leading the song out with some nice layered screams. A fantastic cover – totally improved the song for me and it’s probably the best song on the disc. As with most of As I Lay Dying’s release that I reviewed last month, it’s just a shame that it can’t be called the band’s work.
The next song was titled “Breeding Violence (Big Chocolate Remix)”, but I renamed it so I never had to read it again. The song mixes the industrial style dance music with the band’s own genre and it doesn’t sound too different to their original stuff. Okay, there’s a lot more sub bass and there’s a lot of playing with the fact that the song is in stereo, but it’s not too much different – all the music is the same and there, it’s just a little more cut up.
The penultimate song is “This is Exile (Ben Weinman Remix)”, the intro of which is actually good – dark, creepy and atmospheric. This is instantly ruined by a terrible guitar tone – it’s overly fuzzy and distorted, it’s ridiculous! There’s some screams before the drums come in – the low end of EVERYTHING is boosted, giving the song quite a warm coating, with the snare and hi hat sounds cutting through pretty darn well. The song goes quiet for a short break that continues that strange theme that the intro started – children’s voices and whirs in the background. All swiftly fades to let it all jump back in suddenly. This remix totally fits the original song and this new direction together really well, I must say. The second best song on this release.
Lastly, it’s “End of Flesh (Acoustic Version)”. It’s actually quite pleasant to listen, despite the chord sequences being dark. I think the bright and fairly clear tone of the acoustic guitars take the evil side of things away. The playing was quite human – natural buzzing being left in, etc. I really enjoyed the fact that it wasn’t completely perfect – it felt nice to listen to – almost as though it was being played for you. I’m also extremely glad that there wasn’t anything else going on apart from those guitars; I feel as though it would have removed the atmosphere and ‘live’ feeling of the song.
Overall, the same thing that I said about the As I Lay Dying EP applies here – there’s a fair amount of decent stuff here: the cover and the second remix are definitely the best tracks here, but they can’t be completely tied to the band, as it wasn’t entirely their work. The acoustic song worked really well as an outro after the madness that came before it, and it was a good choice to have it on there. It sounded good, too.
Overall, it was similar in terms of its negative attributes, to the AILD EP, but had even less material on it. Granted, it’s not a full album release, but the songs that were good on this were a lot better than the ones that were on the AILD one and that just made the lack of more material a lot worse.
2.5/5
Reviewed by Jobe Robin (Corvus of Morlich)
Valkyrian Music 