Album Review: Terrasite by Cattle Decapitation (Metal Blade Records)

Cattle Decapitation are back with their 8th studio album titled Terrasite, set for release on the 12th of May via Metal Blade Records.

Cattle Decapitation are a band I have the utmost respect for and go into this album review massively excited but it wasn’t always that way for me. Early days of this band saw me more ambivalent, enjoying them but not adoring them. I really got on board fully around the Monolith of Inhumanity days, enjoying their expanding sound and style. That all peaked for me with 2019’s Death Atlas. An album I absolutely adore, play regularly these days still and believed the band may never surpass because it is that good.

Terrasite, as you will read, has me eating those words. It is a concept album, dark and twisted as you would expect looking at the evolution of humanity into monstrous creatures. An evolutionary step, necessary after humanity has destryoyed the earth and drained it of it’s resources. The title is a word invented by Ryan that brings together ‘Terra-’ meaning earth and ‘-site’ derived from the Greek word ‘-sitos’ which means ‘food’. “The combination of the two meaning ‘earth-eater’, as a metaphor for humanity’s role in the destruction of the planet, and is a play-on-words of the very fitting word ‘parasite’.

Speaking about the band and it’s direction, Travis Ryan states:

“I just feel with the way things change so drastically nowadays, especially the last three or four years, that it’s surprising an extreme metal band can not only be around for so damn long but still stay anchored in this constantly changing scene that’s dictated where it’s going to go by younger generations – and still maintain relevance. Our band truly is an anomaly. I’d prefer to keep it that way.”

Cattle Decapitation are Travis Ryan on vocals, Josh Elmore on lead guitar, Belisario Dimuzio on rhythm guitar, Olivier Pinard on bass and David McGraw on drums. The band once again worked with producer Dave Otero (Cephalic Carnage, Allegaeon), who knows the members’ individual styles and how to coax the best out of them, bringing in Tony Parker of Midnight Odyssey to handle piano and synths.

“Though many bands have tried, no one articulates the real apocalypse humanity is facing as vividly and succinctly as Cattle Decapitation.”

That is a sentence used in a Bio written by Dan Slessor and I dont think it can be put better.

Terrasitic Adaptation brings the dark and disturbing story to life quite quickly with an intense and gritty atmoshere building us into a typically ferocious track. Huge roars, insane drumming and bone shuddering riffs cascade down upon you as Travis Ryan unleashes as much venom as he can muster. The things that make Cattle Decapitation stand at the top of the pile of extreme metal to me is there ability to add groove and hooks to extreme music and this opener brings that in spades. Through solos, switch ups in vocal tones and styles and an anthemic chorus/section with Travis’ unmistakable “cleans” all surrounded by passages of absolute ferocity. What a way to open an album this is and the quality keeps coming.

The single, We Eat Our Young, comes next and is a dark and dirty blast of extreme metal with more catchiness than should be possible in this style of metal. The overall feeling of end times and the darkness that conjures up in your imagination comes through in every note and keeps the concept firmly at the forefront. Another single, and already one of my favourite songs of the year comes next with Scourge of the Offspring.

This track is everything I have come to love about Cattle Decapitation. The dark and nightmarish lead guitars, the riffs that just batter you and drums that just pummel. It’s heavy, stop start with loads of transitions in speed and intensity and has the most phenomenal epic/anthemic section that is pure sing along material. How Cattle Decapitation have evolved to be one of the most respected extreme bands in the world yet I can’t help describing them as catchy, sing along and anthemic. It’s madness but it’s their madness and they own it and excel at it. This is the very best of a band on a rich vein of form.

The Insignificants keeps the quality at the very top with another crushing track with loads of stomping metal and gurgling vocals. I love the drawn out melodic tint on the lead guitars and the gang vocal shouts. The sudden descent into a brief melodic slow down is teasing but when it comes back in from that with a huge roar and crescendo of instruments and atmospherics, you feel you are listening to something special. A spoken word stryle of singing starts building up the layers again, it sounds new, these layers keep piling on top of each other in jaw dropping fashion closing out a masterpiece of a track on an album that is faultless so far.

The Storm Upstairs starts with a really dark and intsense stomping groove with guitars that sound like warning sirens screaming alongside the chunky filth. Of course the song picks up, driven by insane drums and some special bass lines to become an aggressive ripper of a track. It’s the second longest track on Terrasite so I am expecting some switch ups and “moments” and we get plenty of them. Those memorable cleans come through, there are loads of different and very atmposheric guitar lines and some of the catchiest sections of drums and riffs going, sure to get heads moving.

The wonderfully named …And the World Will Go on Without You and A Photic Doom keep the intensity coming. Both containing blasting extreme metal with fiery riffs and drums. The former being another absolute corker of a track with a wonderfully epic sounding cleaner section. The latter, hitting hard with insane riffing and vocal passages, big chunky sections and pure unleashing sections. It also comes with an atmopsheric as fuck guitar solo that works so well in the song and overall concept.

Dead End Residents slams hard with plenty of punishing riffs and beats while also pulling in those glorious clean anthemic sections sandwiched between some superbly vicious assaults. The penultimate track, Solastalgia, is typically intense with insane drumming and vocal power. The hanging guitar melodies add an even more threatening tint to a furious track. Chuck in those bigger anthemic moments in the mix of an absolute fiery beast and you have another song on Terrasite that just slays.

Cattle Decapitation bring Terrasite to a close with Just Another Body. This song is over 10 minutes long. Yes, over 10 minutes long. Is that too long for an extreme metal song? Probably, yes, but Cattle Decapitation may have outgrown that label, they have evolved and this song is not only a masterpiece, it is an intelligent album closer and concept completer.

A slow and foreboding intro with orchestral backing while the darkness creeps up on us is just about the most impressive thing I have heard this year. It grows into an absolute stunner of a track that transitions between the most aggressive side of this band, to the anthemic cleans, to a deeper clean singing style all while the drums pull you around and the guitars surround you in feeling and atmosphere. This is insane, the growth of this band in recent years is astounding and so impressive.

They are a well respected band but for me, these last 5 years or so have seen them take their sound and the idea of what extreme metal can be to all new heights. They lead, blazing a path to inspire others and enthrall fans. Managing to tread that fine line that keeps them heavy and extreme but allows them to push boundaries whether through production quality, new vocal ideas, the melodies, synth and atmospherics. I genuinely believed that Death Atlas was the band’s magnum opus. I thought if they could just stay close to that level, then I would be a happy bunny. Who knew that their very next release would surpass it?

Terrasite is a phenomenal album, as heavy as hell with a concept that might seem science fiction like but is really a pointed dig at the wasteful and destructive nature of humanity. Musically, accomplished with insane drums, riffs, bass and leads and vocals that offer even more stylistic tweaks all combining to leave the listener, to leave me, absolutely in awe of a band that are at the very top of their game. It’s going to take something special to stop this being my album of the year.

Don’t sleep on this, even if you historically haven’t always liked Cattle Decapitation, come back and try again because Terrasite is brilliant.

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