Deathcore pioneers Whitechapel released their seventh studio album The Valley on March 29, 2019 to positive reviews from critics and fans alike. The album reached #7 on the Billboard US Top 100 Hard Rock Albums and it could be argued that it could be in-part due to lead vocalist Phil Bozeman utilizing more clean vocals throughout the album on top of his growling vocals. It was a move that had some hardcore fans worried but it has been met with praise and success.
In late-September 2020, guitarist Alex Wade broke the news that Whitechapel was working on new material on Knotfest.com’s Mosh Talks With Beez. He spoke about how they were trying to “make the best of a bad situation”, meaning the covid lockdown, and took the time to get creative and write for their upcoming album.
Wade teased fans and re-assured them about how the new album could sound, “I definitely feel like The Valley opened up kind of like a floodgate of options for us to be creative and new avenues that we can explore, so there’s definitely gonna be quite a bit of that on the new record. But no worries- there’s still gonna be tons of heavy material, classic kind of Whitechapel sounds.”
Throughout their career, Whitechapel have written songs about serial killers (see their Jack the Ripper-inspired album), gore, religion, sociology, and politics. More recently changing gears, The Valley has been Whitechapel’s deepest and most emotional work to-date, with songs such as “When A Demon Defiles A Witch” and “Hickory Creek” (which also got an acoustic release on April 14, 2020). “Before when we first started out we were young kids and we just wanted to be the most brutal thing we possibly could be. When you get older you take things more seriously,” Bozeman recalled about his evolving creative process, as he is writing lyrics for the upcoming album, as well.
The album is expected to be released sometime in late 2021 and I, for one, am eagerly awaiting the first taste of how they’re going to follow-up the powerhouse that was The Valley.
While we wait, be sure to check out their fun merch collab with Puck Hcky
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