I have been watching this lot graze since they were young heifers and released debut album ‘To Serve Man’ back in 2002. At the time I thought they sounded pretty damn fine and I have been proved right with the follow up albums, particularly loving the moods and tone of ‘Karma Bloody Karma’ a barbaric and somewhat mournful piece of work. The fact that the band are vegan grinders and that they have somewhat highlighted the plight and farming conditions of the bovine race has not been overlooked. Hopefully they have got the message across in their music and even encouraged a few to give up eating meat. Although this message hard to ignore, especially with the startling imagery they use and the very song titles themselves, they do not particularly preach or milk things out (sorry). However it is very unlikely you will find them doing benefit shows for clown franchised family eating butcheries.
Back to the main course and the music itself. All the sounds of Old McDonald are herd (sic) before first cut ‘The Gardeners Of Eden’ blazes in. Guitars scythe and Travis Ryan’s vocals hardly stand still for a second. Pig grunts, squeals and beefy bellows (no other way to describe em) hit you for six and the melody, my word. To say it takes on the sorrowful and maudlin tone that they hinted on at the last album is an understatement. The slower parts of the song really do subject the listener to a misery requiem that is the sort of sorrowful and bleak sound that one would perhaps be more at hearing in a particularly well constructed funereal black metal epic.
Grinders need not worry; there is plenty of that on show as well. The haywire melee of ‘A Body Farm’ rages with disgust at the killing, both by rapidly coruscating guitar riffing and rabid vocals. Although this is music and it is meant to be enjoyed it would take a real emotionless idiot to come away from this without feeling a little bit uneasy. ‘We Are Horrible People’ is a title that is hard to ignore as is the lyrical content and the ideas behind these songs. They might not be completely understandable to the human ears but I was very pleased that they are up on the artist’s homepage for all to read. Some of the in-between track segues here are absolutely revolting too when you actually put your mind to what exactly they represent.
Seriously the vocal arrangements here are absolutely crazy and some of the maddest I have ever heard. They have been highly praised by Jarboe someone who knows a thing or two about vocal torture herself. She is also on hand to add her tones to the title track, another bleakly haunting moment.
I was rather surprised to see this lot were going to tour America with none other than Mayhem and obviously there is the issue of animal carcasses having been used in the past on their stage show. An indignant message board reply on Cattle Decaps forum from Travis states any such actions will see him leaving the tour pronto. With Maniac gone Attila is more likely to stick to bewildering costumes anyway. I would kill to see this tour in the UK, although choosing shirts to buy would be tricky as this is another thing that Cattle Decapitation excel at.
Apart from Jarboe’s seal of approval, Billy Anderson has also stated "This record is one of - if not THE - proudest piece of work in my career." So with all this in mind you really would have to be a bit of a dumb animal to ignore it!
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