WHITECHAPEL: MORE POPULAR THAN I THOUGHT
Friday, July 18th, 2008 at 12:05pm by Vince Neilstein
When I glanced at this week’s Soundscan charts, one thing jumped out at me: Whitechapel’s debut This Is Exile debuted at #117, tied with the new Maroon 5 live album (!), scanning 5,907 units.
Now, call me crazy, but this just makes no sense to me; a relatively unknown band moving such a respectable number of units seems a tad fishy to me. In fact, when I searched Google Images with “whitechapel this is exile” to find the album cover to post above, said cover was the SEVENTH result on the page. Uhhh… what??
So… What exactly is the story here? New MS writer Sammy O’Hagar gave the record a decent review — personally I haven’t listened to it — but certainly didn’t seem to think it was that special. Are Whitechapel getting a big push on MTV2? Radio? Are their live shows completely captivating, setting moshpits across the nation on fire? Are the first week numbers inflated due to a special pre-order bundle or inclusion in another package?
Beats me. Maybe I oughtta go listen to this record to see what the hype is about.
-VN
Totally Vince! I hear you! Selling 6K units on a debut is a LOT for a death metal band
And why you’re at it, look into how did Job For A Cowboy debuted so high and have like millions of MySpace pageviews? I dont get it!
Whitechapel is getting a big push at Hot Topic, at least where I live. It’s a pretty good album.
yea i know my name is weird but david ur rite whitechaple is pretty big here too well yea i guess
How old are the guys in this band? looks really young. Could there be a connection with brutal death metal done by baby faces and record sales?
Like the tunes on myspace! Have check out the album…
I thought it was OK-ish, but it felt unfinished. That said, the Metal Blade gang really push their young bands hard in the public eye… maybe the hipsters are tired of white belts and wailing? ;)
A no talent myspace band gets signed to Metal Blade and releases a popular yet unoriginal album? Sounds like a job for a cowboy
I’m diggin’ this album. I’m not sure how it sold so many copies but when I saw them at summer slaughter, they were the first band to play and had a bigger crowd/pit then the next couple of bands for sure. When Psycroptic came up next the crowd was about half the size of WC’s.
They are also in Revolver, yes I admit for like a dollar an issue I subscribe. The article this month is about deathcore, they are featured along with Emmure and a few other bands. XM 42 also had them in for a Hostile Take Over. Katie Brutal is a hottie, anyhow… the band also has a grassroots following. I’m not kidding they played a community center a year or so ago in Sterling, Virginia and were damn good, I picked up their first CD then. I have seen them them a few times since and was disappointed that the show they were gonna play with Darkest Hour got cancelled here in DC. I mentioned this band to my friends all the time. Well worth checking out!
Dude Whitechapel at summer slaughter in Long Beach, CA about a minute into their Intro a kid gets knocked out fuckin cold. Then on the last jam. Two guys start a fight and they get layed out too. I think the funniest thing is PPhil looked scared when he saw the kids get knocked out. Too Brutal.
XM has been playing them a lot. I think they’re boring and generic deathcore. Seriously screw that whole “genre”. It’s like not having the balls to be Death Metal.
Maybe cuz this is NOT their debut. Last year they put out “SOMATIC DEFILEMENT”.
How come you guys don’t check up on these things???
@ Anders: *Metal Blade* debut. sorry.
No prob dude:-)
they’re lame vs knights of the abyss debut
seen these guys open up for darkest hour, and didnt think they were half bad so i checked them out. Their new release didnt come too long afterward so i picked up the cd. I think its pretty good.
I know where I live a group of deathcore fans that I know are obsessed with them
That’s 10 cd’s right there.
As a newer fan of Deathcore, I can’t judge it by originality.
I can say, however, that this is probably my favorite Deathcore album.
And my favorite song from this album is Daemon (The Procreated)
To me, Death Metal just doesn’t have the same energy.
yea whitechaple is prob. the best band i ever heard of. my cuzin told me bout them my fav. song would be ”This is Exile” but yea if u say they suck well idc there really good so tats ur prob