Whitechapel - Kin • GRIMM Gent

Whitechapel – Kin

30/12/2021

Whitechapel is an American deathcore band formed in 2006 and is a band that did a lot of experiments with their sound. With their first two albums ‘The Somatic Defilement and ‘This Is Exile’ they brought pure deathcore. With their third album ‘A New Era Of Corruption’ they searched for a more brutal death metal sound. ‘Whitechapel’ and ‘Our Endless War’ showed us a band that was searching their own sound. And on their sixth album ‘Mark Of The Blade’ they put one song with clean vocals, it was bold but I loved it. ‘The Valley’ was more of that a mixture of pure metal with clean vocals. ‘Kin’ is their newest album and they have found the perfect mixture with their brutality and the softness and I can tell you already that they finally found their sound.

They kick off with ‘I Will Find You’ that starts off very soft but then with a blast they let in the devil with a wall of sound. Very heavy, very brutal but then there’s a softer side within the song. It gives room for some clean vocals and it works. It’s nice, it’s awesome, don’t know if fans of there older albums will like it, but this is the new sound of Whitechapel. If you don’t like it, too bad, but it sounds awesome to me personally. ‘Lost Boy’ shows that Whitechapel is still a brutal metal band and that the input of clean vocals in some songs doesn’t mean they went completely soft. And with ‘Lost Boy’ they continue to show their brutal side, so nobody has to worry. ‘A Bloodsoaked Symphony’ then is a true masterpiece, a work of art. It brings me back to the sound of ‘The Somatic Defilement’ with more of their deathcore sound. ‘Kin’ is becoming an masterpiece.

Then we have ‘Anticure’ that shows off the softer side of Whitechapel with clean vocals, but at the same time amazing riffs and it’s nice to have something like this after all the violence as a little breather. But it is not done yet cause when ‘The Ones That Made Us’ comes up, the brutality is again rising and building up to a warzone. ‘History Is Silent’ is a nice softer song again with clean vocals and it’s a song that can help you if your going through a hard time. And when a brutal band can do that, then they deserve to be named with the great ones I believe.

‘To The Wolves’ has the same message as ‘History Is Silent’ but in a more brutal way. Then we have ‘Orphan’ that has an awesome melody with again clean vocals and they know when to use the clean vocals, like I said before a perfect mixture of their brutality and their softness.

Then we have two songs that stands together: ‘Without You’ is an acoustic intermezzo that goes further into ‘Without Us’, with a very brutal guitar riff that goes silent when the clean vocals start and build up to a more brutal song with a powerful sound. We end with ‘Kin’ and not everybody is going to like it. It’s a side of Whitechapel we never saw before but if you take your time for it. Close the curtains make it dark and listen to the sound and the lyrics it has a strong message and you will love it. And you will love that Whitechapel is the best therapy you can ever have.