Band:	Whitechapel
Album:	Mark Of The Blade
Style:	Deathcore
Release date:	June 24, 2016
Guest review by:	omne metallum

Disc I
01. The Void
02. Mark Of The Blade
03. Elitist Ones
04. Bring Me Home
05. Tremors
06. A Killing Industry
07. Tormented
08. Brotherhood
09. Dwell In The Shadows
10. Venomous
11. Decennium

Disc II [Deluxe edition bonus CD]
01. Alone In The Morgue [demo]
02. Articulo Mortis [demo]
03. Devirginations Studies [demo]
04. Fairy Fay [demo]
05. Festering Fiesta [demo]
06. Ear To Ear [demo]
07. Articulo Mortis [demo]
08. Ear To Ear [demo]
09. Festering Fiesta [demo]
10. Fairy Fay [demo]
11. Festering Fiesta [demo] [new version]
12. Prostatic Fluid [demo]

Five albums in and going strong, Whitechapel were at the forefront of the deathcore genre and had established themselves as a band who stood firm while the genre slipped away underneath their feet. Mark Of The Blade saw the band switch up their approach while remaining close to their roots; the resulting songs show it was a mixed success for the band, and one that saw them take two steps back instead of one forward.

Mark Of The Blade sits awkwardly in Whitechapel's discography, the band stripping away the technical infused music of prior albums towards a more straightforward between-the-eyes strike. While this isn't in and of itself a bad thing, the way Whitechapel approach this sees them dilute what uniqueness the band had in the deathcore genre and they sound bland and generic as a result.

Mark Of The Blade can still kick ass though; "The Void", "A Killing Industry" and "Tremors" are just three of the songs that show that while the band were wobbling they were far from falling, with songs still imbued with quality that carries over from the past, regardless of tweaks to their formula.

While the songs still had the quality typical of a Whitechapel track, what the band had done by tweaking the formula was to remove much of the power and intricacies that had enveloped you upon listening to prior albums. "Brotherhood" is the only track that really makes much use of the three-guitar weapon available to the band; for much of the album it is reduced to a three-guitar chord assault that sounds remarkably thin. While creating a more straightforward approach is not necessarily a bad choice, smashing its knees in as you expect it to stand up tall is self-defeating.

Bozeman's vocal performance is a mixed bag; rather than switching between a smaller range of styles regularly, he sits in one lane for much of the album, airing his mid-level growl instead of a range of growls like on prior records, and then switches between a larger range of styles in the remainder of the record as a compromise. "Bring Me Home" and "Decennium" feature clean vocals, which Bozeman had yet to do up until now; while he has a good voice, two songs in eleven does not compensate enough for what is a pedestrian effort by his standards.

Mark Of The Blade does feature a mixed bag production from Lewis, who lets the album soar before shooting it out of the sky. The sounds are clear and crystal, with tracks like "Elitist Ones" benefiting greatly from you being able to navigate between the instrumental barrage. As mentioned before though, this comes at a cost of the instruments sounding thin and weak; while the music is supposed to be heavy as hell, Lewis chips away to refine the structure, but sheds much of the weight of the tracks.

Mark Of The Blade is a knife that needs sharpening; it has potential and the shape of an album that could be a strong addition to the deathcore genre, but between the performance and audio issues, it is an album better in theory than practice. Worth a listen for fans of the band, but not one I would recommend for the casual listener.