Brandan Schieppati Names the Whitechapel Album That Dominated His Gym Sessions in 2025

For some, the year’s best music is measured in streams or critical consensus. For Bleeding Through vocalist Brandan Schieppati, 2025 had a simpler metric: what held up between sets. He’s just made it known that Whitechapel’s latest full-length was, in his words, his “record of 2025 in the gym.”

The album in question is Hymns in Dissonance, the deathcore unit’s ninth LP, released earlier this year. Schieppati didn’t elaborate on track preferences or set-list specifics. The statement was its own endorsement—a veteran of heavy music singling out a record purely for its utility under a barbell.

He did, however, add a broader take on metal’s relationship with physical exertion. Referencing Hatebreed’s 2002 track “Perseverance,” he joked, “I swear to god, that song was written for people doing bicep curls.” The line lands as a half-laugh, half-truth: the song’s blunt-force breakdowns and motivatonal bark have been gym-soundtrack staples for over two decades.

It’s an unguarded moment that says more about how music actually functions than most year-end lists. For Schieppati, whose own work in Bleeding Through helped define the mid-2000s metalcore landscape, the value of a record isn’t abstract. It’s felt in repetition, in fatigue, in the ritual of getting through something difficult. That Whitechapel’s latest stepped into that role for him is both a compliment and a quiet clue about how the genre sustains itself beyond the stage.