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More than a decade into their career, Cattle Decapitation
hopes to set the new standard for extreme music with The
Harvest Floor. Although they play a gore-soaked, fusion
of death metal and grind, it's important to point out
that the band is not what they seem. It's not all blood and
guts, at least not from animals. The band members are
vegetarians who are against the mistreatment and consumption
of animals. They even have a veggie-burger named after them
at a cafe in their hometown of San Diego. Umm, umm good. Depicted
through their lyrics of blood and gore, animals represent
humans in all cases; the lyrics are anti-human. I haven't
seen the actual album artwork in its entirety, but the cover
depicts humans being led into the “harvest floor.”
Leave the inner intestines of the CD booklet up to your
imagination.
So what's for lunch, you ask? In a word, Cattle Decapitation's
music (or lack thereof) is chaotic. It's a grinding, brutal-as-can-be
level of extreme metal, not heard since goregrind legends
Carcass first arrived. The blast beats by new drummer David
McGraware are some of the fastest ever put down on record.
The guitar riffs are a schooling in technical brutality. Vocals
from Travis Ryan are inhuman. It's ironic, given the group's
stance, that he often sounds like a dying animal. The 10 songs
on this disc are all equally intense. I couldn't even
begin to tell you how anyone could sit down and write songs
this fast, complicated and brutal. You'd never be able to
duplicate the same song twice. It's not until eight songs
in, on the title track, featuring guest vocals from Jarboe
(Swans), that listeners have time to chew their food.
Just like that, it's time for desert, with the most accessible
and strongest song of the album, “Regret and the Grave.”
To put it into perspective, this would be the heaviest thing
that most other bands would dare to record, but it's last
night's leftovers for Cattle Decapitation. Adding more entrees
to the menu, the band seems to have acquired a small taste
of black metal influence throughout the album, most evident
on “Regret and the Grave.”
Favorite songs? Can't say. Favorite song titles:
“A Body Farm,” “Tooth Enamel and Concrete.”
Be warned. If you're a normal person, this isn't something
you're going to want to consume. A certain aspiration for
the end of civilization and the human race as we know it is
mandatory to fully sink your teeth into and enjoy The
Harvest Floor. Is your mouth watering yet? The songs
are indecipherable. They may make you lose you lunch. But
that's the point. Cattle Decapitation is as extreme as anti-humanly
possible and, as proof, The Harvest Floor is
a thick, bloody slab of meat.
®2009 Live-Metal.net
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