Cattle Decapitation, the band more famous for its disgusting cover paintings and bans in various countries than because of their music is about to release its fourth full-length album upon an unexpecting world. Humanure is my first encounter with these fierce veggie death grinders from San Diego and I was pleasantly surprised by this combination of brutal death metal and Grindcore, mainly of the fact that, because of their controversial image I thought they were using it to disguise their musical inabilities. None of this is the case, these guys really can play and, even more important, they can write some pretty memorable songs as well. A track like for instance “Reduced To Paste” is both brutal and catchy as hell; unexpected breaks, weird tempo changes, killer riffs and the doubled vocals of singer Travis Ryan make up for a very strong song. Apart from the intro and the too long outro (almost ten minutes of abattoir sounds is too much) all songs are of the same high quality.

Producer Bill Metoyer (Slayer, WASP, Six Feet Under) made sure the production is top level.

It doesn’t sound overly extreme or brutal but in a strange way, because of this production the brutality of “Humanure” kicks in even harder if you know what I mean. The most noteworthy aspect of Cattle Decapitation in my opinion are the double vocals, Travis Ryan has recorded everything two times. Deep guttural grunts and high Grindcore screams are combined and it sounds really extreme and intense.

The promo didn’t contain a lyric sheet and the website isn’t up to date but from the titles and the lyrics of Humanure’s predecessor To Serve Man the subjects are pretty clear. Extreme vegan anti bio-industry anti-humanity gore left-wing propaganda. I mean, titles like “Humanure“, “Reduced To Paste” and “Applied Human Defragmentation” leave little to the imagination and normally I can’t stand such radical views but when it’s wrapped in such a high qualitative grind/death package it leaves me no other option than to recommend this to as many people as possible.
So grab a beer, grill a steak and enjoy “Humanure”