WHITECHAPEL "TENNESSEE TAKEOVER 2024"

The commencement of writing for the album was a direct result of the Covid pandemic, the band having several tours lined up to finish out the cycle for The Valley, but when these got cancelled, they decided to refocus their energies and begin working on a new record. "We started writing sessions beginning in May and would write for usually a week solid, then take a few weeks off to let everyone digest that material, reset and gain new ideas and perspectives on the songs, then get back together for another week to continue the process," says Wade. Working for the first time with drummer Alex Rudinger, who has been touring with them since 2019, they treated writing like a job, working from 12pm to 7pm before taking a break, and if they found themselves grinding gears on a particular song, they would shift to working on another one, which helped refresh them. Wade also admits that following The Valley was initially a daunting task, something that he soon overcame. "I can't speak for everyone in the band, but personally, I did feel slightly intimidated at first, wondering if we could summon that kind of magic again, but after hearing some of the demos we were working on, I felt more confident in being able to recreate a similar vibe to 'The Valley' on the new one. I feel like our songwriting is done in layers, and as each layer is created and placed into the songs, they begin to take on a life and personality of their own. So, with each layer, you get more confident in the songs and the impact that they are going to have." The result is a collection that explores a lot of sonic and emotional territory, and for the first time, it could be said that a Whitechapel record is as much a rock album as it is a metal one, an assertion Wade agrees with. "It's still very much a metal album, I don't think you would hear any of the songs on mainstream radio, but there are elements of the record that have more of a rock and open vibe. We really wanted these songs to breathe and have life and to sound bigger than anything we've made so far. We have explored more singing on 'Kin' too. It wouldn't make sense to have the majority of the fanbase enjoy that sound and then shy away from it." This is not to say that the band have lost their hardest edges, with the full-on death metal assault that kicks off both "Lost Boy" and "To The Wolves" as brutal and serrated as extreme metal gets, and while Bozeman explores his wide-ranging singing voice more, he also cuts loose with his trademark roar across the album's eleven tracks.

With Bozeman exploring childhood trauma on The Valley, it was their darkest release to-date, but its successor, which continues the story told on that record, is darker still. The album title pertains to relatives, which is what the album is about, but the deeper meaning behind this plays into the idea that the vocalist's alternate reality/persona is his kin as well. "It's a fictional representation of a non-fictional story. I'm coming from a 'what if' standpoint. I'm also representing it in a way that conveys a more deep and dark frame of mind. This is all about what I could've been, had I decided to take the dark road. For the sake of storytelling, there are supernatural elements in play here as well," explains Bozeman. While each song is complex and would require going line by line to truly break down what they are actually about, Bozeman offers explanations of the first three. Opener "I Will Find You" takes place right after the last track off The Valley, "Doom Woods", which sees Bozeman entering into his life following the events characterized on that album. "However, I am being followed by my alternate reality/evil self. It's the part of me that can't let go and will go to any heights to find the real me and pull me back into the dark past that I want to move on from." Then there is "Lost Boy", where the vocalist and his alternate self meet for the first time. "He tries to convince me into going into his reality, which is a false sense of security. He knows I'm at a vulnerable point of my life, and this is a perfect time to pull me in. However, I resist and the alternate me is cast back into where he came from." This leads directly into "A Bloodsoaked Symphony", which sees his alternate self living through the tragedies of his life in a never-ending loop. Eventually the character kills himself only to find himself in the same world, but it's dark, depressing, and he's full of delusional thoughts. "My parents are with him, but in a brain dead, corpse-like state, but his delusion sees it as a way to be together. Throughout the song, he relives certain parts of our past life but with different outcomes."

These haunting lyrics and themes are accompanied by album art designed by Jillian Savage - as Wade explains, "The artwork was a concept that was developed by Ben Savage and the band that was hand-painted by Ben's wife, Jillian Savage. Ben arranged a mock-up of what we were envisioning digitally, then they projected that image onto a canvas, and she painted the piece in a pointillism style - dot by dot - over the course of several weeks. The result produced the perfect vibe for the more artistic direction of the record. Not only was the music painstakingly labored over, but the art was too."

Tracking of Kin was predominantly done at guitarist Zach Householder's home studio with producer Mark Lewis producing his fifth straight Whitechapel album, making for a very comfortable working environment. "Creating records with him has an effortless flow to it, and we can track things pretty quickly and efficiently these days," says Wade. "Mark has a great ear for giving us unique and complementary guitar and drum tones for the songs we are trying to record." Spending two weeks hunting for the right rhythm guitar tone before commencing, like writing, the band treat tracking like a job, putting in the hours between 12pm-8pm, Monday to Saturday, which is the most productive way of working. The tracks were then sent off to David Castillo at Ghostward Studios in Sweden in February 2021 for mixing, Ted Jensen mastering it in Nashville in March, making for a total of ten months spent on the record, the longest the band have worked on one to-date. Now, having another album they can be as proud of as its predecessor, it stands them in good stead as they look toward the future. "I see more growth and a limitless potential," says Wade. "I think we found a great formula on 'The Valley', and we used that to create another monumental record for our career that I can't wait for people to hear. We hope to continue to grow our fanbase with this new album, and always seek to move in a positive direction. I'm excited as the pandemic lessens for the touring world to come back to life and to be able to perform these massive songs we have created in the manner they were meant to be heard - live and loud."

Sanguisugabogg  

Death Metal/Black Metal  

Absurdist Ohio extreme metal band Sanguisugabogg ply an absolutely filthy, savagely downtuned brand of death metal with disgusting, gory but resolutely tongue-in-cheek lyrics.

Formed in 2019 in Columbus, Ohio, the band initially comprised vocalist (and sometime-standup comedian) Devin Swank, guitarist Cameron Boggs, bassist Steph Barnes, and drummer Cody Davidson. Later, Boggs and Barnes were replaced by Cedrik Davis and Drew Arnold, respectively. Their unusual name comes from a combination of sanguisuga, the Latin word for leech, and the British slang word bog, meaning toilet -- with the aim of evoking a bloodsucking toilet. Songs with titles like "Turkish Blood Orgy," "Gored in the Chest," "Urinary Ichor," "Black Market Vasectomy," and "Testicular Rot" give a good idea of where they are coming from.

The whole band had been fans of old-school death metal from an early age; Swank's first show, at age 12, was Cannibal Corpse. Inveterate jokers arguably as famous for their prodigious consumption of psychedelics as for their music -- they claimed to have recorded the entirety of both their albums while tripping on acid -- they dubbed themselves "drug death metal." While the band's tone was goofy and jokey, they took their music very seriously, utilizing crushing drop-G tuning and eschewing solos for a relentless groove and piledriving riffs.

Picked up by metal giant Century Media on the strength of their first demo EP, 2019's Pornographic Seizures, they recorded their first full-length album for the label, Tortured Whole, and released it in 2021. Following complaints over the EP's lyrics about violence against women, the band switched it around and made all the album's lyrics about violence against men. Their second album, Homicidal Ecstasy, followed in 2023.

- From Allmusic.com

PeelingFlesh  

Metal  

Slamming Brutal Death act Peeling Flesh (US). Quitessence of slamming brutal death metal from members of Strangled, Aberrant Construct and Loathing Existence.

LINE UP: Mychal Soto - Guitar; Jason Parrish - Guitar; Joe Pelletier - Drums; Austin Hirom - Bass; Damonteal Harris - Vocals.

Gates to Hell  

Metal  

Forming in late 2019, Gates To Hell aimed to fuse the finest elements from both metal and hardcore, highlighting fast metal riffs with heavy hardcore and deathcore breakdowns written in a manner unexplored within the Kentucky music scene. The band released their first LP “Gates To Hell” in September of 2022, where they kept to their roots while developing a sound that was uniquely theirs.

The response blew all expectations out of the water, with no sign of slowing down. Gates to Hell spent most of 2023 on the road playing nearly 150 shows in 11 different countries and Supported bands Dying Fetus, The Black Dahlia Murder, The Acacia Strain, Despised Icon, Sanguisugabogg, Bodysnatcher, 200 Stab Wounds, Kruelty, and Dying Wish on various tours across the US, Canada and Europe.

Continuing this momentum with no sign of slowing down, the band is ushering in 2024 with a new home at Nuclear Blast Records, a pummeling new single, and heading on the road with labelmates Machine Head and Fear Factory.