UMUR
"The Harvest Floor" is the 5th full-length studio album by US, California based grindcore/death metal act Cattle Decapitation. The album was released through Metal Blade Records in January 2009. It´s the successor to "Karma.Bloody.Karma" from 2006 and there´s been one lineup change since the predecessor as drummer Michael Laughlin has been replaced by David McGraw.
"The Harvest Floor" is stylistically a continuation of the chaotic, technically well played, and brutal death/grindcore style of "Karma.Bloody.Karma (2006)". If anything Cattle Decapitation have become even more erratic and adventurous in the way they play and write music compared to their preceding releases. Sometimes the experiments work well and sometimes they leave me wishing for something to hold on to...maybe a regular power chord riff, or anything resembling a catchy hook or vocal phrase. On the other hand you have to admire their completely uncompromising approach.
"The Harvest Floor" features a decent sounding production job, although the drums do have a relatively unpleasant "cardboard box" sound. Sometimes it´s hard to differentiate between the clicky sounding bass drums and the snare drums and because of the way the drums are mixed, there is a mechanical feel to them. The guitars could have prospered from a more meaty heavy sound too, but on the positive side the vocals sound great in the mix. And the vocals by Travis Ryan actually deserve a special mention. Ryan performs several types of extreme metal vocals ranging from gurgling grunting, to death growls, to inhuman screaming, and even gives his first brief clean vocal performance.
So upon conclusion "The Harvest Floor" is another bold and uncompromising death metal/grindcore statement by Cattle Decapitation. I understand why they are often called an aquired taste, but their music is arguably both interesting and technically impressive with multible tempo changes, breaks, and unconventional song structures. A few more catchy moments would have made the album even more interesting, but a 3.5 star (70%) rating is deserved.