Single Slam – Bring Back the Plague by Cattle Decapitation (Death Atlas)

Extreme death metallers, Cattle Decapitation, return with the second single from their incoming new album. This track is called Bring Back the Plague.

Bring Back the Plague will feature on Cattle Decapitation’s new album, Death Atlas. Death Atlas is due to drop on the 29th of November via Metal Blade Records. It is probably the most eagerly anticipated album I have left to come out this year. Death Atlas follows Cattle Decapitation’s excellent 2015 album, The Anthropocene Extinction. They did also release a compilation album of B sides and the like called Medium Rarities in 2018. A new studio album has been a long time coming. Cattle Decapitation are Travis Ryan on vocals with Josh Elmore on guitars. Dave McGraw is on the drums and Belisario Dimuzio is also on guitars. Finally, on the bass, it’s Olivier Pinard.

Bring Back the Plague’s title pretty much sums up the message, aimed towards humanity. It’s around 4 and a half minutes long and is another absolute corker of a track. Carrying on from the first single, One Day Closer to the End of the World, the real highlight is the vocals and particularly the higher toned half clean/half snarl. The way Cattle Decapitation have utilised them this time round is genius and exciting. Progression for themselves and extreme metal. Fear not though purists, Cattle Decapitation haven’t gone soft. Bring Back the Plague is a violent and heavy assault on the senses.

Kicking straight off with a ruthless attack of speed drumming and riffing. The vocals come in dark and growled with higher growls in the backing. As the song progresses, the higher tone takes over with deeper backing. This swapping over of styles works brilliantly. The chorus is great with huge sounding blasts and riffs. It drops down then into a slightly more rhythmic groove with a supreme head banging beat before we get a cleanly sung section, still delivered with plenty of menace though. This section ends with a transition back to the extreme end of things with drum speed the beggars belief and guitars that work their way into the mind. It all ends with a chunky rhythm and some throaty growling to close.

Cattle Decapitation continue to grow and evolve with each new track or so it seems. Bring Back the Plague is another damn fine song with lashings of impressive heaviness especially coming from the insane drumming and speed riffing. The vocals have always been a strong point of the bands but they have grown beyond belief utilising the cleaner style more heavily and it works well. There is a new layer, a new complexity to the songs and I love it.

Bring Back the Plague is available now on all the usual streaming platforms. Preorder a copy of Death Atlas from the band here.

Cattle Decapitation Links

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