WHITECHAPEL: New Album Title, Artwork, Release Date Revealed

Knoxville, Tennessee death metallers WHITECHAPEL have set "A New Era Of Corruption" as the title of their third album, due on June 8 via Metal Blade Records. A song from the CD will make its online debut on April 12,

"A New Era Of Corruption" was recorded at Audiohammer studios in Sanford, Florida with acclaimed producer Jason Suecof (TRIVIUM, ALL THAT REMAINS, THE BLACK DAHLIA MURDER, CHIMAIRA, DEVILDRIVER).

"The album is finally 100% complete and we couldn't be more excited. I think this record truly represents where we are as musicians at this point in our career," comments guitarist and founding member Alex Wade.

"'A New Era of Corruption' is the heaviest and most aggressive material we have written to date.

"Some of you may notice that the title of the new record, 'A New Era of Corruption', is a line from the song 'Possession' off our last album, 'This Is Exile'.

"We wanted to name the CD this to bring a little flavor from 'This Is Exile' into the new CD, as well as I think the name represents this new age of extreme metal that we are currently rising in.

"The album is not a concept record like 'This Is Exile' was. It just has its own general theme and each song deals with its own topic track by track."

"A New Era of Corruption" track listing:

01. Devolver
02. Breeding Violence
03. The Darkest Day of Man
04. Reprogrammed to Hate
05. End of Flesh
06. Unnerving
07. A Future Corrupt
08. Prayer of Mockery
09. Murder Sermon
10. Nercomechanical
11. Single File to Dehumanization
12. Animus (digital and vinyl bonus track)

Handling artwork for "A New Era Of Corruption" was Brent Elliot White, who previously worked with JOB FOR A COWBOY and CARNIFEX. "Brent absolutely nailed it," states Alex. "The dark and ominous vibe he portrayed with his art fits the mood of the CD perfectly."

"A New Era Of Corruption" features guest vocals from Vincent of THE ACACIA STRAIN on the track "Murder Sermon" and Chino from the DEFTONES on the track "Reprogrammed to Hate". Alex explains: "Vincent has been a longtime friend of the band and we have always talked about him doing guest vocals on one of our records, so, naturally, his style of vocals fits our music perfectly and sounds great.

"We're honored to have DEFTONES vocalist Chino Moreno on our record. All of us are huge DEFTONES fans so it's pretty surreal for us.

"He absolutely killed his part on the album and it's everything I envisioned it would be. Plus it's cool that Chino was so opened-minded to do vocals on something so extreme; I think that it sounds fantastic."

In support of the upcoming release, WHITECHAPEL is hitting the road to play about 30 dates, most of which are with labelmates JOB FOR A COWBOY and CATTLE DECAPITATION, including stops at the New England Metal And Hardcore Festival and the California Metalfest. Then come the summer, WHITECHAPEL will be on the road as a part of the Vans Warped Tour.

"We have some killer tours coming up in support of the new record, the first one being with JOB FOR A COWBOY and the second one being Vans Warped Tour," states Alex. "The JOB FOR A COWBOY tour will be cool as it will be in smaller rooms with a more intimate setting with the fans. This is something we haven't done in a very long time so it will be awesome to go back and do some shows like that. Then we will be doing the complete opposite and playing to thousands of people a day on the Vans Warped Tour so we are very excited and honored to be a part of that."

Last but certainly not least, WHITECHAPEL is set to film its first music video for the track "The Darkest Day of Man" off "A New Era of Corruption". The band will once again work with metal video director David Brodsky of MyGoodEye.

In a recent interview with Ultimate-Guitar.com, Alex Wade stated about the band's forthcoming LP, "The new album will have its own concept and will not be based off 'This Is Exile'. Though there will still be some slight themes from 'Exile', they'll still be present on the new album just to, kind of allow the fans of 'Exile' to connect with the new album and stuff like that. But it kind of has a theme of its own. It is not going to be so much a concept album it just kind of will have its own theme. And the art work kind of ties in with it, but it won't really tell a story. The theme is going to be about the downfall of man and where man is forced to become a machine. And the album artwork will explain all of that in a physical sense."

Regarding the band's decision to work with Suecof on the new album, Wade said, "We chose Jason Suecof because in our eyes he definitely puts some of the cleanest, as well as, the heaviest recordings out. A lot of producers can't really grasp that concept of making something extremely heavy while at the same time making everything really clear and audible, like with the guitars and stuff like that. We're really excited to be going into the studio with him and for him to be taking our sound and kind of meshing it with his production."

WHITECHAPEL is:

Phil Bozeman - Vocals
Ben Savage - Guitar/Leads
Alex Wade - Guitar
Zach Householder - Guitar
Gabe Crisp - Bass
Kevin Lane - Drums