CATTLE DECAPITATION — To Serve Man (review)

CATTLE DECAPITATION — To Serve Man album cover

Album · 2002 · Grindcore

3.5/5 · 2016-09-19
siLLy puPPy

Before drifting into pure death metal territory the San Diego based CATTLE DECAPITATION started out in the goregrind and noisecore arenas of extreme metal. After a couple of EPs, they released their debut TO SERVE MAN in 2002 which is somewhat of a bridge between the early years and those that followed as this one takes the goregrind and merges it with more deathgrind. As evidenced by the cover alone, this is meant to be nasty and gory through and through with the visual shock value turned up to 11 and such clever titles as “Testicular Manslaughter,” “Colonic Villus Biopsy Performed On The Gastro-Instestinally Incapable” and “Long-Pig Chef And The Hairless Goat” making me think of the perfect fusion between early Carcass in relentless grinding brutality mixed with the humor of band like Psychostick.

TO SERVE MAN is simply a near 35 minute brutality bash with the expected grindcore elements like relentless guitar riffing with a muffled bass and incessant drumming that has never heard of a break for even one second! While the music is still very much rooted in grind, Travis Ryan’s vocals are very much in the death metal camp hence the term deathgrind! The musicianship is top of the line with one tiring speed metal riff after another with breakdowns and pummeling rhythms and occasional outbursts of a solo. This is some brilliantly brutal metal for those who love a constant barrage of uncompromising brutality but for me the tracks seem to lack enough variety to make this an extremely exciting listen all the way through. The drums become a tad monotonous at times and the riffs begin to sound a bit recycled by the end of the album, however if you are in the mood to simply band your head until your eardrums pop out then this will do the trick. Seditious and refractory music to spread earaches far and wide!

more than 2 years ago
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siLLy puPPy wrote:

more than 2 years ago

Hey! Let me live in my bubble with this one! Personally i think all EPs and full albums should really just sit side by side in the same row. The distinction has been blurred to nonexistence over the years anyway. Even live vs studio has been tainted. There's nothing pure anymore!

Sheavy wrote:

more than 2 years ago

Short songs; short albums. The way it was meant to be :P

UMUR wrote:

more than 2 years ago

If the band themselves says it´s an album and not an EP (as I know is the case with the Nails release), then it´s a bit hard to argue that it´s an EP isn´t it? :-)

siLLy puPPy wrote:

more than 2 years ago

I guess this is a "core" thing. Unfortunately my least experienced subgenres. I know punk bands employ the same thing. Minutemen had tons of albums that were 15 minutes long. I stand in a room alone i know but they are EPS if they are under 25 minutes!

UMUR wrote:

more than 2 years ago

There are several grindcore "full-length" studio albums that are shorter than 20 minutes out there. Another prolific example is http://www.metalmusicarchives.com/album/nails/unsilent-death by Nails.

Sheavy wrote:

more than 2 years ago

There's some Grindcore releases out there that are around the 13-15 minute mark that are considered full lengths, at least by the band or some people lol. 20-25 minutes is a pretty solid length for a Grindcore release, much longer and albums can tend to get bogged down.

Never could get into this release as much as I wish I could, this album gets monotonous quickly. I prefer the shorter song format they followed on Human Jerky and to an extent on Homovore. The songs here seem to go on for longer than they need to. I'll take those two albums over this one any day.

Also that soundclip at the beginning of Testicular Manslaughter is from a videotape of a Russian soldier being beheaded by Chechen rebels. Not that anyone really wanted to know that information.

siLLy puPPy wrote:

more than 2 years ago

From Wikipedia:

While an album may contain as many or as few tracks as required, the criteria for the UK Albums Chart is that a recording counts as an "album" if it either has more than four tracks or lasts more than 25 minutes.[8] Sometimes shorter albums are referred to as "mini-albums" or EPs.[9] Albums such as Tubular Bells, Amarok, Hergest Ridge by Mike Oldfield, and Yes's Close to the Edge, include fewer than four tracks. There are no formal 'rules' against artists such as Pinhead Gunpowder referring to their own releases under thirty minutes as "albums."

So technically the debut could be an album because it has more than four tracks but i just can't accept it! A 20 minute recording is an EP in my book. There do seem to be conflicting sources about this one although most agree with you that they consider it their first album.

UMUR wrote:

more than 2 years ago

This is actually their second album, although the debut is just under 20 minutes long. It´s still widely considered a full-length release though.