![Whitechapel – Kin [Things You Might Have Missed 2021]](https://www.angrymetalguy.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Whitechapel-Kin.jpeg.webp)
“Kin, as its name perhaps suggests, is a distillation of the themes expressed in The Valley: family. Bozeman laments his family’s disintegration and his own loss of innocence throughout, represented through a breed of deathcore even more mature than its predecessor. The heavy hits heavier, the bleeding heart hemorrhages thicker, and the songwriting accomplishes a storytelling flow to relate it all.” Deathcore in the family.
“The fantastically named Demonic Death Judge is a sludge/stoner quartet from Kymenlaakso, Finland, having released two EPs and three full-lengths of plodding and hazy dirges since 2009, The Trail being their fourth. Their first two full-lengths were nearly identical to Louisianan Thou’s gloomy sludge affairs, pitching molasses-thick riffs, blackened rasps, and decidedly bleak themes.” The path unbakened.
So I’m super unqualified to review this record because I a) don’t like sludge and b) have never listened to Crowbar before this moment. Sure, I’m sure I should have heard them, but I gotta be honest with you, I’ve been sort of busy. There are plenty of scenes that have developed since the 1990s and the slow, southern rock post-thrash stuff has never been my thing. Name bands from south of the Mason-Dixie line and I probably don’t like them unless they’re Kris Kristofferson. Always hated Down, didn’t think Corrosion of Conformity was terribly special (and this one’ll really burn your ass), I never liked Pantera or its postbellum incarnations. (Oh and I don’t like Black Label Society because they want to be a southern band even though Zakk Wylde is from fucking NEW JERSEY.) Given all of that, then, I was pretty fucking stoked that listening to this record wasn’t torture! In fact, it was really enjoyable. Let me regale you with the tale.
