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Best of Boston 2009

Review: Cattle Decapitation's The Harvest Floor

Metal Blade (2009)
By DAVID BOFFA  |  January 27, 2009
3.0 3.0 Stars

0901340_cattel_main3
The problem with most black- and death-metal bands is that they take themselves too seriously. (See: Emperor's alleged arson of Norwegian churches.) Cattle Decapitation, a San Diego deathgrind act, are an exception. There's plenty of thrash 'n' gloom on The Harvest Floor; "Gardener of Eden" avers that humans are the destructive juggernaut that will eventually kill the planet.

But the fake farts at the end of "Into the Public Bath" and vocalist Travis Ryan's inspiration for this song — he finds public pools "just fucking gross" — suggest it's all tongue-in-cheek pastiche. Just remember to keep your guard up.

Breakneck-tempo drum blasts and spastic pinch-note guitar grinds bring the doom on "The Ripe Beneath the Rind." And Ryan details in sewage-sucking growls his vegetarian distaste for dining on "nutrients of contents of mammal," excoriating those who do: "A corpse is still a corpse, of course we dine with no remorse." It's a lot to chew on, but the gallows humor on TheHarvest Floor is decadent.
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