Cattle Decapitation are piling epic upon epic. The San Diego vegetarian metalmen hit a peak with 2015's "The Anthropocene Extinction," and it's now clear that total annihilation just wasn't enough.
In action since 1996, Cattle Decapitation rang with an extra level of commitment and invention from the beginning. Decades on the road would've worn anyone else down, but vocalist Travis Ryan and friends have only expanded their mission to subsume every metal mode into one giant atomic crab monster, echoing not only their own past but the spirits of metal gods from Judas Priest to Behemoth and more.
The use of machine-gun kick drum has always stood between death metal and a wider audience -- essential to the genre for its physical excitement, but too intense for grandpa's prolonged subjugation. Well, fine; the radicals have marked their territory. Thanks to the magic of producer Dave Otero, though, "Death Atlas" drummer Dave McGraw not only triples down with the fastest kick repetitions you've heard, but somehow leaves room for enormous variation and depth among the other instruments.
Yes, you get fast & slow, loud & quiet. In case you're ever missing the point about planetary destruction, Ryan even provides a few intervals of dark narration embedded in artful sound collages, a mode he has pursued to great effect in his abstract/electronic solo efforts. (Dio used narration on his concept album "Magica"; Cattle Decap does it better.) And Ryan's vocals are something to hear, in the authoritative death woofing, some depressive crooning and much electronified high melodic singing. While melodic vocals have proved a rat trap for many metal bands whose "clean" crooning either evokes cornball opera or wets the emo bedsheets, Ryan has found a way both to carry a tune and to maintain deathly horror.
Guitarist Josh Elmore's durable riffs, McGraw's cranky tempo changes, and even guest vocals, horns & keyboards fill out a recording that taps everything from classic metal ("Absolute Destitute") to rap rhythm ("One Day Closer to the End of the World") to Genesis prog ("The Unerasable Past") to a snatch of Bo Diddley, fergawdsake ("With All Disrespect"). Sometimes (on the best track, "Time's Cruel Curtain"), the Death can even be pretty.
Happy holidays! Utter despair never sounded so good.
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"Death Atlas" releases next Friday, November 29. Watch this space to hear the whole album on YouTube on that date.
Watch Wes Benscoter's quite literal 11-minute short film of "The Unerasable Past" here.
Cattle Decapitation plays the Regent on December 12.