Cattle Decapitation
To Serve Man
Metal Blade
Cattle Decapitation were a standout on Deathvomit’s Carcass tribute album that came out last year. Why did they stand by and let Metal Blade snatch this promising grind horror band up? Their loss. My god, their loss. Catch them now on tour, opening up for GWAR!
It’s appropriate that To Serve Man begins with a sick gurgling noise, I figure it’s a sample from some gore flick of a guy drowning in his own viscera. That’s a grim herald. “Testicular Manslaughter” (ahem) starts the album horrifically with spiraling guitar, stuttering drums (footsteps chasing you down butcher shop halls), and deep intestinal vocals that seemingly drip mucous and clotted blood with every retched word. These new school goreheads are taking the vocal styles to a whole new peak of sickness.
“Eat Your Skin” switches up blast beats with malicious thrash sections at jarring intervals, like unlicensed surgery gone bad. Though Cattle Decapitation willingly restrict themselves to a simplistic brutal style of music, I get the feeling that these guys are great musicians. They’ve got a militaristic tightness not seen in many of their more erratic grind brothers. That means they’re sounding this fucked up on purpose. Oh my… It’s sick man, the guitars are as sharp and clear as serrated knives, and those drums just keep pounding, metronome-style, into the back of your head, while vocals writhe around in your ear canals like a malignant organism, snaking further and further into your consciousness – laying eggs, etc. Not much in the way of soloing. They’re mining the “Reek Of Putrefaction” and Autopsy veins.
“Writhe In Purescence” is highlighted by a vocal performance that sounds like the singer is being forced to regurgitate a particularly large living animal, over and over again. It’s so wet and warm, pretty stomach wrenching. By “The Regurgitation of Corpses,” my stomach is starting to feel pretty iffy. It’s amazing how, without even being able to discern a single (I’m sure sickening) lyric, Cattle Decapitation is able to bring across a mood of flailing organs, hacking knives, and buckets of blood. Whole rooms where the walls and floors are made of flesh.
I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that the closer of this record is called “Chunk Blower,” all about… you don’t want to know, trust me. There are songs about hit-and-runs, flesh-eating organisms of all sorts, the menace of humanity, murder, bombings, and various other disgusting mechanisms. Messy. MESSY! Who’s gonna clean up all the vomit and pieces?
Metal Blade Records: http://www.metalblade.com • Cattle Decapitation: http://www.cattledecapitation.com
