ALBUM REVIEW: Cattle Decapitation – The Anthropocene Extinction

WORDS: Jessica Howkins

San Diegan quartet CATTLE DECAPITATION are back with their seventh studio album, The Anthropocene Extinction. Over a nineteen year career and six previous successful full-length albums, the name CATTLE DECAPITATION have made for themselves in the death metal scene cannot be taken away from them, nor can the fact they are one of the most brutal, hard-hitting bands around.

The Anthropocene Extinction proves that as time goes on in the band’s career, they are only going to get heavier.

From the second the album opens with the torturous Manufactured Extinct, it is clear that this album is going to be something that fans of the band can’t even begin to grumble at. If there is one way of knowing how CATTLE DECAPITATION have made a stunner of a record, it is that feeling of blood boiling quicker than your eggs in the morning.

Evidently, The Anthropocene Extinction is heavier, faster and well, just more sinister. The band don’t mess around in getting stuck into what they do best, making some of the angriest music. With tracks such as The Prophets of Loss, the vocals of Travis Ryan dominate and control the sound with his monstrous abilities.

Hints of black metal also take charge in direction the album takes, adding the sinister side to the pure aggression that seeps out of the cracks. Circo Inhumanitas and Not Suitable for Life are two fine examples of black metal influences CATTLE DECAPITATION have proudly incorporated, once again controlled by the screeching tormented vocals of Ryan.

If there is one part of the record though which just becomes possibly the most favourable 10 seconds, it’s the party in a death-metal riff that is beheld within the chaos of Mutual Assured Destruction. Throughout the entirety of the track, it is pure brutality and fight to the death but as soon as 1:50 kicks in, that’s it, it’s a matter of beer chugging and banging your head as majestically as you want.

Throughout the entirety of The Anthropocene Extinction, CATTLE DECAPITATION offer uniqueness to each track, Ave Exitium being the most notable. Through all of the aggression and brutality that takes hold of the record, this track in particular is hauntingly beautiful. With an oceanic atmosphere, it is a track that is highly unexpected. Leaving behind all of the fury that was in every other before it, the softness of Ave Exitium offers a different darkness to the album.

Ave Exitium is however the calm before the storm, if there is one way to end a death metal album – CATTLE DECAPITATION have done just the job with Pacific Grim, it only leaves one feeling; hungry for more.

The Anthropocene Extinction is possibly the finest record CATTLE DECAPITATION have put out. It holds everything that makes death metal an incredible genre of music. Heavy, aggressive and just plain twisted. The stunning creation from the San Diego based band is just a flawless representation of how you grow as a band. Over the years some bands just fall behind in the times and some just grow to be non-existent, CATTLE DECAPITATION have only shown the world that they are only going to get bigger and darker.

RATING: 9/10