It is hard to comprehend that the members of Whitechapel would have been in pre-school when the likes of “Slowly We Rot”, “Scream Bloody Gore” and Alters Of Madness” were released. Yet such releases inspired the Tennessee Deathsters amongst an array of others to further push the boundaries of the Death Metal genre into a new century.

“A New Era Of Corruption” is Whitechapel’s third release in four years, so they’re nothing if not prolific; and for those not familiar with Whitechapel, they are as savage as Jack The Ripper (from whence they take their name) and twice as brutal. The bands previous two albums “The Somatic Defilement” and “This Is Exile” where unquestionably heavy but firmly entrenched in the Deathcore camp, and only showed flashes of what “A New Era Of Corruption” has finally realised.

For this record the band have ditched the concept album approach choosing to focus on each song as an individual entity, and you can only speculate whether that is the root cause for the more straight forward Death Metal sound but there have been significant strides away from their previous Deathcore vibe. With all the brutality and furious rhythms of the previous two Whitechapel releases “A New Era Of Corruption” has some subtle, yet very effective changes thrown into the song writing mix. Kevin Lane ’s drumming demonstrates more variation from the stock blastbeats of old; the three guitar approach has more variation in depth and tempo with only Phil Bozeman’s vocals being the constant (gruff and guttural).

Fans of the first two Whitechapel albums won’t be disappointed and while “A New Era Of Corruption” is by no means a break through album there is certainly enough to suggest the band are at the top of their game, and you have to dismiss the whole “are they Deathcore or Death metal” bullshit as this is an excellent release. The improvements from album to album demonstrate the bands abilities are improving as musicians and they continue to try and find their own sound; which in a world where there are more followers than leaders isn’t a bad place to be.