CATTLE DECAPITATION — The Anthropocene Extinction (review)

CATTLE DECAPITATION — The Anthropocene Extinction album cover Album · 2015 · Death Metal Buy this album from MMA partners
4.5/5 ·
UMUR
"The Anthropocene Extinction" is the 7th full-length studio album by US, San Diego, California based death metal act Cattle Decapitation. The album was released through Metal Blade Records in August 2015. It´s the successor to "Monolith of Inhumanity" from 2012 and features the same lineup as that album did: Travis Ryan (vocals), Josh Elmore (guitars), David McGraw (drums), and Derek Engemann (bass).

The music on the album is a frenetic type of death metal featuring fast blasting parts, heavy mid-paced grooves, and many different types of vocals. The latter is a bit of a speciality for Cattle Decapitation, and lead vocalist Travis Ryan is quite inventive in that department. He performs low growls, high pitched aggressive snarls, dry lung core tinged vocals, and also sings some raspy clean vocals. The latter mentioned add some melody to the otherwise chaotic and very brutal soundscape, but they are not "angelic" cleans by any means. The technical level of playing is high and the music feautures many tempo changes and breaks, relatively adventurous structures, and an overall unconventional way of composing. The "clean" vocals for example only appear on occasion and are not necessarily used in a "growl in verses/sing clean vocals in the chorus" format. It´s actually quite deliberating although it´s not completely alien compared to conventional vers/chorus structured music. There´s just a slight twist to this, which makes it different enough to be a little more interesting.

The material on the 12 track, 46:09 minutes long album is of high quality. It´s not easily accessible music and it´s an album which requires more than one spin, before the tracks settle and become distinguishable from each other. Highlights include "Manufactured Extinct", "Clandestine Ways (Krokodil Rot)", and the closing track "Pacific Grim", but there´s nothing sub par on the album and the quality is consistently high throughout. "Ave Exitium" is the only track which stylistically stands out as it´s a sombre atmospheric track solely featuring clean vocals.

"The Anthropocene Extinction" features a clear and powerful sounding production, which suits the music well and the musicianship is also on a very high level, so upon conclusion it´s an album with many great assets. They way Cattle Decapitation twist conventions without sacrificing classic extreme metal virtues and memorability is generally pretty exciting. A 4 - 4.5 star (85%) rating is deserved.
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Unitron wrote:
more than 2 years ago
Great review, I've yet to check this band out but from the sounds of it I'll have to fix that!
Nightfly wrote:
more than 2 years ago
I do like this album a lot. It was hovering in the lower reaches of my top 30 albums of last year but got nudged out before the deadline.

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