Album Details

• Artist: Cattle Decapitation
• Album: The Harvest Floor
• Label: Metal Blade
• Year of Release: 2009
• ME Rating:
• Reviewed by: solitaryman on 2009-07-02

In all their gorish glory, Cattle Decapitation have perhaps been most responsible for the expanded knowledge of grind throughout the more mainstream areas of music fandom. In synopsis, the band utilizes obscene and pervasive lyrical themes to promote their vegetarian and ecological beliefs; in the process they turn the fingers back at themselves and humanity as a whole. This has always been a continuing theme, but on The Harvest Floor they seem to make a more full-fledged attempt at a concept record in which humans become the lambs leading themselves to slaughter. Along with this, it is seemingly appropriate to say the band has come a long way from their early records, and have much more to say in terms of elaborate ideas and injecting more melody and progressive ideas into their core sound.

And it's only about 2 minutes into opener "The Gardeners Of Eden" where we see the proof. After an intensely chaotic spout of grind the mood shifts, and a depressing melodic passage is formulated. The dual vocals (of which the higher shrieks are undeniably awesome as they carry a melody that will become lodged in your skull) carry the message; "Leave no trace / Eliminate the human race" and you're very aware of a more elaborate and enigmatic Cattle Decapitation. With song titles like "Tooth Enamel And Concrete", "The Product Alive" and "In Axestasy", you can tell before even listening what to really expect from the majority of the album. This is a bit of a hinderance to the album as a whole, as most of it blends in together just as their early albums did. Plenty of variety is injected but done so in a manner as to obscure it with an overbearing message. Things don't really peak again until the experimental title track, which features longtime Swans collaborating vocalist Jarboe. Very dirge-like, it can be seen as a hymn to the wastes of humanity and it's destructive tendencies. Closer "Regret & The Grave" has a pretty interesting video to go along with it. 

Enjoyable, but ultimately burdened by it's message (especially when taken in context of every Cattle Decapitation record prior). Too much is too much, and even when considering the opinions of newcomers I think this album weighs somewhat heavily in those regards. Still, the music itself is nothing less than well done and is certainly spot-on awesome in places. It gets the job done, but does little to create benchmark I believe the band were going for. It certainly feels like a leading-up to something monumental, however. 

User Reviews and Comments