With five genre-redefining albums to their name, the Knoxville, Tennessee natives have carved themselves a unique niche in contemporary metal, and in doing so have spoken to legions of fans. Making their presence known with 2007’s The Somatic Defilement, their profile has steadily grown, and 2014’s Our Endless War saw them crack the top 10 on the Billboard Top 200 for the first time. Their reputation for maintaining their integrity is well-earned, and going into their sixth full-length this commitment is stronger than ever. “I honestly don’t think that we ever have to prove anything to anyone, we do this because we enjoy it, and if people want to listen and support us, that’s just a bonus,” says Bozeman. “With this record we knew what we didn’t want to do. We wanted to get away from the faster stuff, because we’re burned out on that 260bpm blastbeat thing. We’ve done that. Ultimately none of us agree with genre pigeon-holing, and we’re not afraid to write what we want to write, no matter what anyone else thinks.” While the band had clear ideas for elements they wanted to explore, they did not allow this to dictate the record, which developed more naturally, focusing on what was best for the individual songs, refusing to accept anything less than the absolute best they could possibly do. “Nothing was set in concrete when we started writing, and we did not force anything,” Wade states. “For example, the idea of including some clean singing was brought up before any songs were written, but it was never really like ‘okay, we’re doing this’ until the songs that we planned to have that on were complete and Phil could say ‘so I’m clean singing on these, right?’. At that moment it felt exciting that we were exploring musical territory that we hadn’t before, and that we were confident in doing so.” In realizing the album, the band – rounded out by guitarists Ben Savage and Zach Householder, bassist Gabe Crisp and drummer Ben Harclerode – reunited with producer Mark Lewis (The Black Dahlia Murder, Cannibal Corpse). “When it comes to recording we have the ‘if it’s not broke, don’t fix it’ mentality, and he really does find ways to make us sound better with each record. From ‘Whitechapel‘ (2012) to ‘Our Endless War‘, there really was a large step forward in terms of the production and tones, and I feel that is also the case with the progression from ‘Our Endless War‘ to ‘Mark of the Blade‘. This is the biggest we have ever sounded on a record, and it’s great to see his growth as a producer matched with our growth as musicians.”

Whitechapel