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Cattle Decapitation "The ANTHROPOCENE eXTINCTION"


MacabreEternal

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From the blog:

The fringes of my music radar is an odd place for a band/artist to be.  It is a metal version of Hades I suppose were bands sit awaiting my attention before I send them into endless burning oblivion after dismissing them or I alternatively induct them into my own version of a celestial playlist by getting them on regular rotation on my listening pattern.  Occasionally I will be very human and remain completely undecided on a sound or particular style of a band and leave them floating at the fringes of my interest until I stumble across them again on my seemingly endless journey of extreme discovery.

Cattle Decapitation have been in my own version of Hades for a good couple of years.  I have heard good, I have heard bad things but only now with the release of seventh full length "The Anthropocene Extinction" and the ensuing internet furore around it, have I ventured forth unto the breach.

Straight away there is a problem.  I don't like the production.  What should be (I assume) quite gritty and crunchy riffs seem to have been coated in a film that has somehow dumbed them down to an almost nu-metal polished effect.  Take the unfortunately named "Clandestine Ways (Krokodil Rot)", it sounds like a slightly angrier and not altogether as capable version of a Children of Bodom song.  It makes jumps and jerks in all the right places but like any cadaver - it is merely just breaking wind instead of stuttering into a raging zombie reanimation.

Then there are the vocals. They vary from a horrible sneering delivery to a melo-death style that also emanates some BM stylings.  Sometimes a track uses all three of the descriptions above yet somehow none of the tracks are memorable as a result, they sort of just pass you by.  Instead of the grunting being broken up by the sneering attempts at vocals they just distract from them in a negative and not altogether functional way.  Just as I am trying to get to grips with what is going on musically, my focus gets shifted as their is (yet another) vocal change.

By the time I get to track 7 of 12 I can predict the formula of the songs perfectly.  Start fast, chug slow, end fast.  Repeat.  Grind, chug, grunt, grind.  That isn't to say that there aren't moments of promise - "Mammals In Babylon" has an awesome demonic shriek which I very much enjoy but it is soon forgotten as the robotic riffage takes over.  When CA chug, they properly motor but again the feeling of them somehow being held back by the production is just too strong to shake off.

An internet acquaintance referred to "The Anthropocene Extinction" as "immense". However, I just can't see anything, no spark to even bring it into the boundary of an "acceptable" category let alone one that commands the tag of "immense".

I have taken 3 spins at this and I am still no closer to feeling any more positive about it than when I started.  On the week that Deiphago released a true benchmark of extremity this pales badly in comparison to it.
2/5

http://eminentsilence.blogspot.co.uk/

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  • 6 months later...

Is anyone else a huge cattle decap fan? The Anthropocene extinction by them that came out in 2015 is amazing and my favorite album by them. Travis' vocals are brutal and his range is insane. There's not too many albums I can listen to all the way through over and over, but I definitely can with this one! I literally had it constantly playing in my car for weeks. Anyone have any recommendations for bands like cattle decapitation? Or bands I may like? Thanks :)

also feel free to follow my IG if you're a lover of metal:)

pure_fucking_mayhem91

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Cattle decapitation is one of the best band on whole music industry in my opinion, TRAVIS RYAN IS FUCKING LEGEND.

 

And about the Anthropocene Extinction, Pretty hard to say for me but It's probably best album they've ever released.

If you looking more bands like CD, check men must kill, they're good too ;)

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  • 3 weeks later...
On March 17, 2016 at 4:10 PM, LKoNg said:

Cattle decapitation is one of the best band on whole music industry in my opinion, TRAVIS RYAN IS FUCKING LEGEND.

 

And about the Anthropocene Extinction, Pretty hard to say for me but It's probably best album they've ever released.

If you looking more bands like CD, check men must kill, they're good too ;)

Fuck yes!! I completely agree dude, Travis Ryan's vocals are fucking insane. The second they're touring here again I'll be the first bitch there lol no doubt 

On March 14, 2016 at 8:17 AM, Yobo said:

The only albums I like, are The Anthroposcene Extinction and Monolith of Inhumanity. Never really got in their older stuff.

Yeah same here actually. Once I got their latest album I grabbed monolith of inhumanity right after, but other than those two albums I haven't really gotten into any of their older music. They're fucking amazing. I can't wait to see them live

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19 minutes ago, Purefuckingmayhem said:

Yeah same here actually. Once I got their latest album I grabbed monolith of inhumanity right after, but other than those two albums I haven't really gotten into any of their older music. They're fucking amazing. I can't wait to see them live

They are quite cool yes. Never gotten to see them live though, as I decided to skip their tour here last month with Suffocation due money reasons.

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10 minutes ago, Yobo said:

They are quite cool yes. Never gotten to see them live though, as I decided to skip their tour here last month with Suffocation due money reasons.

Awwww damn that's too bad you weren't able to make it I'm sorry /: I haven't been able to go to many shows due to money and health reasons and I know it sucks.. where were they playing at by you if you don't mind me asking? 

On March 5, 2016 at 4:36 AM, RelentlessOblivion said:

Not huge on Cattle Decap either. Maybe you'd dig Carcass' Heartwork I dunno. Tbh it's been ages since I heard any Cattle Decap and I can't really remember what they sound like.

Thank you! I appreciate the suggestion. I've actually recently started getting into carcass. I had always known of them, but never really took the time to check them out. 

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1 minute ago, Purefuckingmayhem said:

Awwww damn that's too bad you weren't able to make it I'm sorry /: I haven't been able to go to many shows due to money and health reasons and I know it sucks.. where were they playing at by you if you don't mind me asking? 

Oh well, I've got to see a lot of bands already, so I don't have anything to complain I guess. And I'm sorry to hear that, I hope you don't have or had anything too bad? Cattle Decapition played in Utrecht and Nijmegen, where Utrecht was the clostest for me (1,5 hours travelling).

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I never got into Cattle Decapitation because the "Humanure" album was really big with the haircut/br00tal kids back in the mid to late 00s and try as I might, it just wasn't something that I was able to get into. I think it's because at the time, Cattle Decapitation sounded like a lot of bands that were dropping records and I couldn't really tell one from another. Granted I'm into Dying Fetus, Necrophagist, and Suffocation but CD never did it for me because I never found their stuff to sound... I guess the term would be "authentic". It sounded a lot like they recorded their songs in small bits and then pasted them all together on ProTools. Again there were a lot of bands like this that were popular with the haircut kids back in the day: Queef Huffer & Gutted With Broken Glass are the two that I can think of off the top of my head.

Another big reason why I think that I can't get into them is that they're too close to grindcore and I've never really heard any grindcore that I liked aside from Nasum (I would place Anal Cunt on this list, but Anal Cunt is more a band that you laugh at their completely over the top song titles and lyrics rather than actually sit down and listen to them, which I cannot do because they really don't sound like music to me so much as a bunch of random wankery on a guitar and blast beats with a guy just screaming).

I tend to lump them in with the New Wave of American Metal thing that was big in the 00s: bands like Between the Buried and Me, Trivium, As I Lay Dying, etc because a lot of the haircut kids were into all of these bands and the only reason that they seemed to like CD was because of the "vegetarian" thing... as it was really popular & trendy to call yourself vegan/vegetarian in those days, so most of the haircut kids listened to them for that reason rather than actually being into that kind of music. They were primarily a name-dropped band around here to give warped tour haircut kids a little bit of "br00tal" credibility.

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