Phil Bozeman: Vocals
Ben Savage: Guitar
Zach Householder: Guitar
Alex Wade: Guitar
Gabe Crisp: Bass
Brandon Zackey: Drums
Hymns in Dissonance, indeed: "No holds barred; there is nothing nice about HID, from the riffs to the lyrics to the overall vibe of the album," states guitarist Alex Wade. "We attempted to write our heaviest album to date. We wanted to put out something that was shockingly menacing and brutal."
"The album follows the story of a cultist who is gathering worthy people to join his cult," Wade furthers, "and there are moments in the storyline where the cult followers are singing an evil hymn to open a portal for the head cultist to enter." The band's dynamic, brutal musicality serves as a soundtrack to the compelling lyrical story that vocalist Phil Bozeman vividly imagines.
"Hymns in Dissonance is a mockery of the true nature of what hymns are," Bozeman explains. "Hymns are melodious and harmonious. Dissonance is the opposite of melody and harmony. Dissonance represents evil. The tracks on the record are the hymns, which represent the seven deadly sins, beginning from Track 3 to Track 10. Tracks one and two are the introduction."
The lineup's timely and terrifying vision was first unveiled in Fall 2024 with the single "A Visceral Retch" inciting frenzied fans to call the song "a version of Whitechapel we have never heard before. Can't explain how absolutely goddamn brutal this song is. This is a total dream come true." The title track is the LP's second single.
Whitechapel, who formed in Knoxville, Tennessee, in 2006, has seen the core lineup-vocalist Phill Bozeman; guitarists Ben Savage, Zach Householder and Alex Wade; bassist Gabe Crisp-intact since 2007, with the exception of the drummer Brandon Zackey, who has been playing with the band since 2022. While Hymns in Dissonance follows 2021's Kin chronologically, the new album is actually somewhat of a sequel to This is Exile thematically, the three-word title Hymns in Dissonance representing that correlation.
Whitechapel started writing for the new album at Householder's studio in June of 2023, following the band's headlining tour for The Valley. Whitechapel stuck to a strict weekday schedule, the structure allowing for maximum creativity and minimum burnout. Householder produced Hymns in Dissonance, which allowed the musicians to seamlessly switch gears from preproduction to recording the full album without skipping a beat. The guitarist shadowed producer Mark Lewis a lot over the last five Whitechapel albums and bringing that influence inside the band is a "full circle" moment for Householder and Whitechapel. "It's cool that we can be self-sufficient and produce a record of this magnitude ourselves; not a lot of bands can say that."
Every detail on HID matters. "With song sequencing we like to try to make our albums as dynamic as possible," Wade says. "We like to give the records a roller-coaster effect toggling the energy of the tracks up and down to keep the listener interested." It was likewise critical that the album art tied into the music in a visceral, provocative way, or has Bozeman put it, "something simple but unsettling with a very classic feel. But not over the top with too many things to look at." Guitarist Savage mocked up ideas for an eerie mask that would represent the cult leader in the album's story. Whitechapel chose artist Rob Borbas, the European tattoo artist known as "Grind Design," to create the cover. "He specializes in dark/cryptic tattoos, and we felt he would be able to take Savage's idea with the mask and bring it to life," Whitechapel explains. "He certainly met our expectations with a dark, evil, ominous piece that makes you question 'what is that?' when you look at it. We wanted the cover to be mysterious until you know more about the story of the album and how the cover applies to it." Hymns in Dissonance sees the band reinventing themselves, going darker, deeper and heavier. While the songs all stand powerfully on their own, the throughline Bozeman says that "more than likely there will be a tour where we play the album from front to back."
Longtime fans will detect hints of the past within the brutality. To wit: the riff-tastic "Hate Cult Ritual" is the only song on the album with Drop A tuning, the tuning the first three Whitechapel albums used. Additionally, the Hymns in Dissonance chapter in Bozeman's life finds the frontman living through his "past times," or as he states, "the music that brought me here. Brutal, dark, aggressive, heavy music. Death metal, black metal, speed metal, etc. I truly believe that your roots call you back at some point in your life and this is that point in my life."
Vocally, the recording process allowed Bozeman to achieve all his goals. "Recording was on our time, so if I wasn't feeling it on a certain day, then I'd just stop, reset and go again the following day. I honed in more on the progression of the screaming vocals that I'm known for," the singer says. "I really reworked my high vocals and tried some new different types of tones with my voice. Basically, a new-age feel to a classic sound."
At this stage in the game, the name Whitechapel commands the ultimate respect. Already sitting on one of the most enviable catalogs in contemporary metal, in 2019 they dropped The Valley, highlighting a confident evolution in their sound and standing as a true landmark release that sets a new standard for the genre. With Bozeman exploring childhood trauma on 2019's The Valley, it was their darkest release to-date. But with its 2021 successor, Kin, the story was darker still.
With those chapters of Bozeman's life exorcised lyrically, Hymns in Dissonance mines a darkness that's not lyrically personal. And, says Wade, "I don't think HID follows Kin musically at all. If anything, it's the polar opposite. For this album it was fun to be able to just let loose and write ignorantly heavy music again. This album stands on its own," Wade concludes. "Phil was able to create a fresh story to write about, which, in turn, helped us write music with a fresher sound."
