CoC : Cattle Decapitation - To Serve Man : Review

Cattle Decapitation - _To Serve Man_
(Metal Blade, 2002)
by: Jackie Smit (6.5 out of 10)

When you dub your band Cattle Decapitation, there tends to be little debate on your style of music. And so it is with Metal Blade's latest gore metal signing -- the ugly stepson of Broken Hope, Skinless et al, clinging with religious fervour to a tried and tested formula and never veering off its well-trodden path even in the slightest. There's the song titles (which, I am sure, were just a matter of time before they were going to be used by another gore band): "I Eat Your Skin", "Everyone Deserves to Die" and the brilliantly cheesy "Testicular Manslaughter" -- each track as devoid of surprise as it is of originality. There's the harmonic-drenched, technical Carcass-style riffing, and of course there's the thoroughly unintelligible, but highly entertaining death vocals, which would undoubtedly do Chris Barnes proud. Yet somehow Cattle Decapitation manage to (almost) pull it off. Sure, they were never going to be "the next big thing", but it's hard to resist the many hooks or the bizarrely catchy beats that are scattered over the course of the record. The sterling mix and production certainly don't do any harm either. When all is said and done, Cattle Decapitation unfortunately aren't much more than a slightly above-average death metal act, but at least they play the part with enough style to warrant the odd listen.

(article published 27/5/2003)

ALBUMS
13/8/2012	J Carbon	8.5	Cattle Decapitation - Monolith of Inhumanity
31/5/2006	J Smit	7.5	Cattle Decapitation - Karma Bloody Karma
11/8/2004	J Smit	7.5	Cattle Decapitation - Humanure