Whitechapel: Our Endless War review

Trendkilling heavyweights Whitechapel are set to release their newest atrocity Our Endless War for Metal Blade Records on April 29^th and it is a mesmerizing, multi grooved colossus that begs to be played at spine shattering volumes. The album expands even further on the style they have perfected over the years and is so much more than the sum of all its parts Our Endless War is the band’s fifth studio album overall and took over a full year to complete. The production, mixing and mastering is handled again by Mark Lewis and the artwork supplied by Aaron Marsh. The band has even selected a new logo to reflect the maturity and evolution of the band. The skin-crawling ambience and slow rhythmic build of intro instrumental “Rise” is the perfect segue to the rumbling bass lines and down tuned guitars of title track “Our Endless War.” It is a brutal beast, complete with hardcore breakdowns and a message of empowerment, to take back your freedoms. From the opening salvo of “This is a way of life,” and the massive and anthemic choruses of the Mushroomhead-flavored “The Saw Is The Law,” to the sublime blastbeats of Cattle Decapitation and visceral kinetic maelstrom of Job For A Cowboy in “Mono,” the album covers a lot of musical ground and territory. “Let Me Burn” deals with the loss of hope and forgoes speed for formidable, drenched in darkness grooves and syncopated vocals while the brutal wall of sound in “Worship The Digital Age” is a social commentary on the world’s dependency on technology. The battle cry of “If you want war, you’ll get it,” in the hypnotically heavy “How Times Have Changed” gives way to the polyrhythmic tornado of “Psychopathy” which ends up being one of the heaviest and best songs on the album. “Blacked Out” and bonus track “A Process So Framilar” sound like a battle to the death between Emmure, Texas In July, For Today and Dillinger Escape Plan. At the same time, “Diggs Road” sounds like a dysfunctional therapy session for Stalin or Hitler with Doctor Charles Manson that deals with the loss of one’s parents at an early age. The primordial grooves and Titanic sized riffs of the bonus track closer “Fall Of The Hypocrites” takes you on a journey into absolute mayhem that grabs you by the throat and refuses to let go. Here’s the bottom line- Our Endless War incorporates the heavy, speed elements of “The Somatic Defilement,” “This Is Exile” and “A New Era Of Corruption” with the mainstream appeal of “Whitechapel” into something that is undoubtedly a stylistic leap forward. Rating: 9/10 -Eric Hunker