Karma.Bloody.Karma, the new album from Cattle Decapitation (surely one of the greatest band names ever), sounds like it came from two different bands: a generic grindcore/death metal act on the first half of the disc and a more adventurous band on the second half. It takes a while, but once Karma.Bloody.Karma finds its legs, it turns into something interesting.

The first six songs are standard-issue death metal: rapid kick-drums, growling vocals and thrashing guitars. On these tracks, they’re better than Belphegor—the standard by which I judge all bad death metal—in that they keep you on your toes by constantly changing the speed at which they play. They also are smart enough to not overstay their welcome, with most of the tracks clocking in at a modest three to four minutes. Lyricist Travis Ryan introduces us to his anti-human/pro-vegetarian views (don’t ask) on the opening track, “Unintelligent Design,” but it never goes beyond lyrics like, “Idiots/backwards/self-serving/self-rightous/all-consuming/bastards.” With other song titles like “One Thousand Times Decapitation,” “Success Is …(Hanging by the Neck)” and “Total Gore?”, it’s not hard to see where Ryan is going with this.

Starting with “Total Gore?”, Cattle Decapitation begins to find a direction. The band’s music is more focused and they start to introduce acoustic guitars and odd effects to create a horror movie atmosphere. They also slow the tempos and the songs get longer. The best of these tracks is the seven-and-a-half-minute “Alone at the Landfill,” which starts out as a grind metal jam until the band slows it into the soundtrack for a mad slasher movie. The vocals alternate between growl and tortured scream. The title track plays like something that Jack the Ripper would have on his headphones (provided that he would, you know, have headphones and not be dead). The two-sided closing tracks, “The New Dawn” and “Of Human Pride & Flatulence,” also have an appropriate air of creepiness, doom and menace.

It’s too bad Karma.Bloody.Karma didn’t followed this direction at the beginning because it reveals a side of the band that is more apt to take risks than the earlier songs. It’s clear that this is a band that can take grindcore to an intriguing place; they just need to find a way to do it consistently. Plus, with a name like Cattle Decapitation, who isn’t rooting for them?