First post! First review!

Greetings!
I'm James! I spend far too much time listening to and playing music! I'm into folk, black metal, death metal, punk, folk metal... you name it and I probably like at least one song within that genre! (Except dubstep.)

So, I'll start off as I mean to continue, but somewhat late to the party..

Whitechapel - A New Era Of Corruption (2010)

This is the new album from Tennessee's finest son's of death metal, Whitechapel!

I first heard Whitechapel thanks to one of their guitarists posting on Sevenstring.org, where i then went on to obtain copies of both The Somatic Defilement and This Is Exile, the latter of which made it into my 2009 AOTY list!

So, the new album! Is it any good? You bet your sorry little ass its good! Not only does it take 2 of my favourite things in music, awesome double kick drums and extended range guitars, but it throws in some tasty solos and some really great vocals from Phil Bozeman, a man who's growl sounds like he was born chain smoking and raised on a diet of grit and sulphur!

Lets go on a track by track basis!


1."Devolver"  Very strong opener, really sets a tone for the rest of the CD, really nice breakdown!




2."Breeding Violence"  One of my favourites, great chorus!




3."The Darkest Day of Man"  Really catchy, at parts the vocals almost border on rap! Clever lyrics and great breakdown!




4."Reprogrammed to Hate" One of the weaker songs, but still good in its own right, good display of vocal range!




5."End of Flesh"  Heavy as all hell, that is all.




6."Unnerving"  The intro is <3! Then the song goes onto be one of this years SOTY for me!!




7."A Future Corrupt"  Catchy, awesome solo section, guitar harmonies really play off eachother here!




8."Prayer of Mockery"  Again, one of the weaker songs, it just lacks the impact i think it was intended to have, still good!




9."Murder Sermon" Marvellous display of dissonance and destruction, one of the best songs on the album!




10."Necromechanical"  Again, heavy as all hell, sometimes lacks a bit of punch, but otherwise great!




11."Single File to Dehumanization"  Absolutely brilliant closing track, great use of ambient guitar playing and drum fills, very strong track!






So, we come to an overall mark! 9/10, easily one of the best albums I've heard this year!
My criticisms lie mainly in the production of the album, the drum tones are marvellous, as are the guitars (Albeit a little over saturated..) and the vocals SLAY! But there's a grave lack of punch at certain points, where you want the song to just kick you in the ear drums... I love Jason Suecof's production on many albums, but he lacked the real kick on certain parts of this Whitechapel release!

Overall, i love the album and I think Whitechapel will go on to be one of the real figureheads of death metal / deathcore!

Til we meet again!