Admittedly Cattle Decapitation is my first real Grindcore band. Like many folks I know, I initially wrote the genre off as virutally unlistable, however I'm starting to come around on this opinion on a number of ways. First, as I find myself going deeper and deeper into metal to find new artists I like, I find myself growing more accustomed to vocals that are virtually nothing but vocal distortion, pig squeals, and other forms of just extreme vocals. I find that I like them way more than I originally anticipated. Secondly, I find myself growing very curious about "inaccessible" music like Grindcore where the sound is considered a massive turn off for majority of folks where they don't want to subject themselves to harsh noise and heavily distorted vocals. There is something amazing about it and it feels like it pushes the boundaries of what IS music. What's curious to is that this "inaccessible" music is growing more and more popular as bands like Knocked Loose is allowing heavy screaming to be more mainstream, not to mention more noise based electronic music is pushing into mainstream as well thanks to the efforts of Hyperpop artists like Sophie, 100 gecs, and Charli XCX. Weird to mention these folks next to more extreme metal artists, but point still stands.
The album Death Atlas is the seventh studio album by Cattle Decapitation. The album, like most of Cattle Decapitations works, tends to focus on the currently state of our world in regareds to it's ecology. Cattle Decaptiation continues to rail against the path humanity is on as we're met with ecological disaster after disaster after disaster, all accelerated by global warming fueled by the actions of humanity. The album takes a more misanthropic view of the issue with lyrics such as "Unfortunately, we require disease, mass fatalities, and extinguishing" (Be Still Our Bleeding Hearts), "Now we see that the true evil has a face/Now we know the devil is the human race" (Finish Them)... It does toe the line with a lot of ecofacist rhetoric, which is unfortunate due to the fact that they are often one of the more left leaning metal bands out there at this moment.
Common defenses for the band state that it is a frustration of the band and is not to be taken at face value, however it is no small secret that metal has a fash problem and thus these problems should be spoken of directly. While I enjoyed their sound, their latest album shows no improvement when it comes to their views and as a result, I stopped listening to them.
The track list is as follows: