Whitechapel @ MySpace

Welcome back, Metal-Jerks Metalheads.  I’m back with a bit of deviation from my normal review patterns, but I felt that it was time I switch it up a bit, and review something that is completely outside of my usual fanfare, which would bring us to the second offering from deathcore giants Whitechapel, titled “This Is Exile“, which is actually their Metal Blade Records debut.  I suppose I’ll get this out of the way first: I hate deathcore.  I hate it with a passion, and think that all it does is speak to the lowest common denominator and make everything that is good about death metal completely trivial and take a backseat to the ever-prevalent “breakdowns” and endless cliches that plague the sub-genre.  For the sake of journalistic integrity, I am going to try and review this album as fairly as I can, and who knows, I actually might be pleasantly surprised by the end of this review.  Never say never…

I have noticed that a lot of people seem to hold this band in such high regard when it comes to the deathcore monicker that you cannot discuss the sub-genre without being pummeled verbally about how this band is single-handedly making deathcore evolve into a completely different beast.  While this may be true in some aspects, I feel that the deathcore trend has already stagnated before it even got off the ground.

The first thing I will say about this album is that it does absolutely nothing to try and set itself apart from the rest of the seemlessly never-ending inadequate musical clones of one another.  One of the first things I’ve noticed that may even try to set these guys apart from the rest of the A-tuned masses is that they have three guitarists, rather than the usual two.  While this may sound like a good theory when written on paper, the execution is far from stellar.  If you cannot accomplish your “heavy” sound with two guitarists and a bassist, then you are doing it wrong.  All the third guitarist has done is drown out the bass more than it would have already been.  Not once throughout all of “This Is Exile” have I been wowed and thought “Man, I’m glad that third guitarist was there to make that breakdown more noticeable!“  It is obviously a gimmick that is far from perfect, and something should really be done about this.

Before I get into what else makes this album incredibly predictable and lack-luster, I will actually throw Whitechapel a bone and say that they are quite good at injecting different melodic licks where the music calls for them, even if it is normally at the apex of a generic breakdown, but, there’s only so far that melody alone can take you.  Thankfully, they seemed to try quite hard on the track “To All That Are Dead” to at least make it seem like they are not one-trick ponies and are capable with different song-structures, which shows that they do have a little bit of promise as a band.

Now, let’s get to the riffs.  While I can certainly see the appeal of the endless “dun dunnn…. dundundun dudun…” riff-style, it really leaves quite a lot to be desired, when all 11 tracks on this album are filled to the brim with faux-slams and pitninja-induced breakdowns.  They do try to stray away from that never-ending pattern, and normally go into quite the predictable speedy-yet-melodic thrash/death metal riff, which immediately transcends into another generic breakdown, time and time again; “Somatically Incorrect” is easily the worst offender on the album in regards to this complaint.  The guitarists are certainly more than capable of playing their instruments, but when it comes to innovative-riff-thinking, they are no where to be found.  There is also the matter of trying to inject quite a bit of Bay Area technical death metal, which is easily done best by the likes of Decrepit Birth, Odious Mortem, and Severed Savior, fail to make a dent in my wandering attention span.

The drumming, while consistent and competent, is incredibly boring; almost as if they were afraid to let the drummer deviate from constantly following the riffs, almost note-for-note.  Really, there isn’t a lot else to be said about it other than it is probably the least offensive thing on the album, and while triggered, not to the point where it is so obnoxious that it makes this album unlistenable.  Also, the vocals just seem to support my stance on most deathcore bands trying to one-up each other by emulating one another, meaning that his growls sound no different than any others of their ilk, and will howl once those speedy riffs show up again, and growl when the slow-and-bludgeoning chugga-chugga riffs show their faces once again.

To be fair, I really expected “This Is Exile” to be much worse than it was, thinking that it would be offensive to all five of my senses, but in reality, Whitechapel as a whole are young, but more than capable of making good music, which is quite evident by “To All That Are Dead“, which was the only track I could keep my attention on.  The album is just really unimaginative, predictable, and boring, but still better than what I originally expected.  However, this is still miles ahead of whatever garbage Suicide Silence or Waking The Cadaver are continuing to spew out to the masses.  All in all, if you are already of the thought that there are no redeeming qualities of deathcore, or that all of the bands sound alike, you won’t like this album; however, if you love the slow plodding moshpit riffs and plentiful breakdowns and competent melody, you will enjoy this album and this band.

Katalepsy at myspace

If a bunch of sissy hardcore boys make a facsimile of death metal with breakdowns and shitty gimmick vocals then it is deathcore and thus bad but if a bunch of guys singing about gore and death and whatever with long hair do the same its “slam death metal” apparently. One is the bane of extreme metal and the other is a perfectly acceptable evolution of Death Metal despite both sounding the same. As it turns out Katalepsy aren’t a bunch of pale skinny mid-western white boys with stretched ear lobes and Atticus hoodies, but a bunch of tough as nails Russian dudes.  They might as well be the former as that’s the music they make though.

I have nothing against mixing Hardcore with Death Metal when it is done with the imagination, innovation and an eye to detail that all good music is made with, let’s be honest the shit to good ratio in Deathcore is pretty high. The breakdowns on “Musick Brings Injuries” are more On Broken Wings than Obituary and the Death Metal segments are more repetitive than you would find in Bona Fide Death Metal seeming to sound like a  Down syndrome version of Mortician. There’s conveniently a Mortician cover on this album along with a hilarious Deathcore version of “Symphony of Destruction”. That means that a quarter of the time on this album is other peoples material and its better constructed than Katalepsys original tracks, which being one of the artists in question is Mortician is really saying something.

The thing that really sucks though is the vocals. What these knuckleheads want to be is more “extreme” than anyone else. They can’t play faster, heavier or more technically than anyone else, so they make the vocals more “extreme” which in this case means making them sound like a cross between a pig and a cricket and never singing in time once. Not in an endearing Paul Baloff way but in can’t go more than 5 seconds before going out of sync with the musicians. It seems that since your average deathco…. Oops I mean Slam Death musician can’t play better than anyone else that have to make the vocalist make as many silly ill fitting sounds as possible to be the most “BROOTAL”.

At the end of the day this variety of metal as exhibited by Katalepsy and their much more musically proficient but still vocally untalented forefathers Devourment has as much influence over the overall death metal scene as Velvet Caccoon or Les Legions Noire had over the Black Metal scene; a lot of dweebs on the internet talking about it, but nothing really happening. If all these “XSLAMXDEATHX” bands sound like Katalepsy, then that’s certainly a very good thing indeed.

Meshuggah at Myspace

Let’s face it the quality of Meshuggah’s material has been on a downward spiral since 1998’s “Chaosphere”. 2002’s “Nothing” was a mid paced boring trudge and 2005’s “Catch Thirty-Three” was an overly pretentious journey to the musical equivalent of the middle of nowhere with nothing to show for it. The problem with both of those releases is they were too obtuse and for want of a better term ‘mathematical’. You are probably saying “but the whole point behind Meshuggah’s music is their use of complex almost mathematical rhythms; how can their music be too mathematical!” The problem is when the mathematics overpowers all the other elements of the bands formula so that it becomes a staid series of theoretical musings in obscure time sequences and forgets the adrenalin rush and off kilter momentum that made songs such as “Future Breed Machine” and “New Millennium Cyanide Christ” so memorable.

The songs on “Nothing” and “Catch Thirty-Three” had the momentum of a bulldozer stuck in quicksand and instead of making you want hurl yourself around your room instead lulled one into a feeling of drowsiness. “ObZen” at first listen seems to have rectified this problem with the first song “Combustion” which is a full throttle poly-rhythm attack that engages the senses like having a hive full to the brim of hornets flung at you at top speed. In theory if there are a few fast songs on “ObZen” then that should allow the slow ones to be more memorable as they won’t blend into one featureless mid paced chug a la “Nothing”.

However, this is not the case as the next six songs are mid paced and whilst tracks such as “Lethargica” and “This Spiteful Snake” have unnerving yet atmospheric discordance that the material on “Catch Thirty-Three” could never hope to achieve. Unfortunately tracks two to seven to seem to blur into half an hour of mathematical chugging nearly always at the same tempo that betrays however unworldly and mind-blowing this material may appear to be at first listen, when presented like this with not enough fat cut away from the meat, the Meshuggah sound seems as formulaic as Cannibal Corpse or Dark Funeral.

“Pravus” is a faster paced and less samey track which helps to some degree to bring any listeners attention that may have wandered back to the fore. It’s too late though as it’s the penultimate track and its now the turn of the nine and half minute album closer “Dancers To A Discordant System” to finish off the job of disappointing us once more. A moment roughly around 5:45 is oddly reminiscent of Gojira which isn’t surprising given the influence Meshuggah have had upon them, but it further hammers it home that barring a surprise return to form, Meshuggah’s time as innovators and leader seems to be over. With one brilliant track with the rest ranging from “kinda alright” to “deserving to be on “nothing” ” this has proven to be a disappointing album.

Devildriver at Myspace

There comes a time in most trend-hoppers time when the first trend they attached themselves to dies and they hop onto the next. This doesn’t just apply to teenagers but to musicians. Bullet for my Valentine, Atreyu, and Norma Jean all started out as rap/nu metal bands, but perhaps the most famous trend hopper of modern metal is Dez Fafara. Fafara made his name donning fishnet tights on his arms and a  terrible gothic haircut fronting stereotypical nu metal band Coal Chamber. When the wheels came off that wagon, Fafara created a new band aimed at targeting the new trend in metal in an absolutely cynical fashion. With their Melodic death influenced metalcore sound, their boneheaded lyrics and the ubiquitously annoying Fafara, Devildriver seemed custom made to appeal to every “true metal” teenage knucklehead wanting to get into “the real heavy shit” in the most superficial fashion possible.

The one thing that strikes you about “The Last Kind Words” is how falsely perfect it sounds. It sounds like it was constructed by a committee to appeal to a certain audience. The chord progression and musical ingredients are tried and trusted to a level that sounds sterile and stale. Elements are taken from every obvious source and used in an exceedingly obvious way. Imagine the first band you formed with your mates in your teens. It was probably influenced by what can be called training wheels metal, (eg, Pantera, Iron Maiden, Metallica, Megadeth, Slayer etc) as that’s the stuff you knew and loved. Now imagine a bunch of guys with 10 years experience in music theory who know exactly what they are doing trying to do the same thing but with a modern “core” edge.

That might be a dream come true to a lot of metal fans, but it’s not mine. Metal, even accessible and commercially viable metal has to have a real dangerous edge to appeal to the discerning metal fan in even the slightest capacity. Metallica, Iron Maiden, Pantera and co took influences from bands that weren’t popular then and certainly aren’t popular now. The same can be said for Opeth, In Flames, Lamb of God, Shadows Fall etc whatever you may say about their current career choices. Devildriver are a lot heavier than the likes of Bullet for my Valentine and Avenged Sevenfold but they are just as unthreatening and safe. Just like Coal Chamber are barely remembered today, I doubt Devildriver for all their popularity will be remembered after they split up. Just like Coal Chamber this shit is just too tame and teen friendly to be long lasting.

Malefice at Myspace (chugga chugga WEE!)

Malefice are getting quite big in the UK with the kids. That if anything else should tip you off that these guys aren’t going to appeal to most of you. Malefice specialise in the sound of metalcore circa 2003/2004 and if this record came out then I’d at least see what the hypes about. “Entities” takes Unearths poor structuring, As I lay Dying’s Melodic Death plagiarism, Lamb of Gods boneheaded good ol boy ambience and Chimaira’s 100% pure distilled shite-ness and turns them into something quite horrid. If you like those 4 bands you will probably like this, but if you hate them, well you’ll despise this.

I think subconsciously they took influence from Dragonforce as apart from the occasional curveball such as Howard Jones-esque clean vocals (which is as curveballs go is positively straight in this instance) the tracks are near enough exactly the same. They start off with a pseudo-melodic death intro go into a Lamb of God style verse, going into a  breakdown with some melodic leads over the tops of it style chorus and so forth. Now if it was A B A B it would be pretty awful in itself, but in-between those are the occasional half-arsed solo’s and a whole battalion of breakdowns. You have your Lamb of god breakdowns, your Chimaira breakdowns and occasionally just for variety some unusual and relatively unorthodox Unearth breakdowns.

The breakdowns usually last for between a third and a fourth of the songs length. Unless you are Earth Crisis you really can’t get away with that. There was a reason that Obituary and Grave only let the breakdowns on “Cause of Death” and “Into the Grave” respectively last for an exquisitely short period of the songs timespan. If Malefice cut the amount of breakdowns in their songs down, they would be horribly average instead of just horrible. If you want to play metalcore where you play endless breakdowns then play tough guy hardcore there’s a whole sub-genre of that sub-genre of a sub-genre dedicated to that. It just doesn’t work at all if for the remaining part of the songs timespan you play melodic death-lite you learned by osmosis from various metalcore outfits.

Put this together with some retarded tough guy lyrics that even Phil Anselmo would be ashamed of, and the gradual realisation that Malefice are so addicted to breakdowns that sometimes their verse guitar lines are basically incredibly fast breakdowns, then this is another sorry example of British metal gone wrong.