UMUR
"Hordes To Abolish The Divine" is the debut full-length studio album by US, New York based sludge/hardcore act Cattle Press. The album was released through Hydra Head Records in February 2000. "Hordes To Abolish The Divine" turned out to be Cattle Press sole studio album in their original run as they disbanded in 2001 without releasing anything further. Before releasing "Hordes To Abolish The Divine" they released a demo, an EP, and a couple of splits with Sloth and Agoraphobic Nooebleed.
Cattle Press started out playing an ultra heavy and filthy sludge/hardcore style but they´ve cut quite a few of the sludge metal elements from their sound on this album. It´s still crushingly heavy and aggressive hardcore with sludge metal leanings, but this is more post-hardcore than sludge. "Hordes To Abolish The Divine" is quite the interesting and also pretty experimental hardcore release and I´m sometimes reminded of the caustic aggression and heaviness of Breach. A newer band like Code Orange have probably listened to this album as inspiration.
Featuring 13 tracks and a total playing time of 52:53 one could have feared that the album was too long for its own good as this type of music is often not varied enough for such long album lengths, but nothing could be further from the truth, as "Hordes To Abolish The Divine" is a nicely varied release. The vocals range from aggressive raw hardcore shouting to deeper almost death metal growling vocals, and the band change pace often, and all tracks feature intriguing and in some cases even unique songwriting ideas (the use of samples work very well too), making this an entertaining and interesting listen all the way through the playing time. And I haven´t even mentioned the suffocating, grim, and claustrophobic atmosphere Cattle Press create...it´s the sound of the apocalypse (or maybe the soundtrack to a post-nuclear war world).
The album features a heavy, brutal, and raw sounding production, which is the perfect sound for the material featured on the album. So Cattle Press have taken quite a few development steps since their minor release days, and "Hordes To Abolish The Divine" is a high quality release from them. A 3.5 - 4 star (75%) rating is deserved.