Year: 2023
Total Time: 52:34
Label: Metal Blade
Four years after the release of the amazing “Death Atlas”, the US deathmetallers CATTLE DECAPITATION return with their tenth full length album entitled “Terrasite”. If “Death Atlas” had foreshadowed the upcoming pandemic back in 2019, then let’s hope that the same will not happen with “Terrasite” since this one envisions a postapocalyptic future when human race is returning and evolves as a parasite. It is interesting that the term “Terrasite” was created by the singer and frontman of the band, Travis Ryan, and it is a paraphrase of the word “parasite” with the term “terra” coming from the ancient Greek word for earth.
From the music perspective, the album has all the elements you would expect to hear from the band. After all these years, and especially during the last 10 when the core of the band is the same (even in terms of producer and artwork designer), CATTLE DECAPITATION have their own identity in Death Metal, and personally, I consider them as one of the classics in the genre. Something like, for instance CANNIBAL CORPSE or NILE, which even when you listen one of their songs for the first time you can recognise the band. A bit of side-comment here, CATTLE DECAPITATION are NOT Deathcore! I do not know why people think of them as another Deathcore band, but I am guessing it is because of Ryan’s extreme vocals. Anyhow, back to the album, “Terrasite” has everything. Ιt is fast, technical, heavy, brutal, groovy and at a couple of points gives some Black Metal inspired vibes. However, the main characteristic of the album is that despite all these, it is not tiring at all. Many tracks (if not all) have a point where the band hits the brake, the speed goes down and after a crazy scream the song moves to more narrative part. Normally, this part will end with another scream which the will lead to an absolute blastbeat explosion or some guitar solo. An example of this pattern is “A Photic Doom”, a track that you will find in the link in the end of the article. Another pattern that the Americans follow is the long last song of the album which serves also as outro. Long story short, the album is made to be listened in full volume and I am certain that during their concerts the new song will raise havoc.
Of course, when we talk about CATTLE DECAPITATION it is impossible not to mention Travis Ryan and his unique vocals and performance. It is not a coincidence that you will see him in pretty much every list with the best modern Death Metal vocalists (often mentioned as the best). Ryan has created his own ‘school’, especially with his high pitch but at the same time brutal vocals. The first time he introduced this kind of vocals was 10 years ago in the “Monolith of Inhumanity” album, and from watching some of his interviews, not even he knew how the audience would react to them. Obviously, after all these years we say that it was a success as regardless of whether you like them or not, his vocals are absolutely unique and has inspired many others. I believe this is also the reason why people confuse CATTLE DECAPITATION as a Deathcore band as many vocalists in this genre sound like Ryan because they use similar signing techniques (fried vocals etc.).
Lastly, the lyrical theme of “Terrasite” is a continuation of “Death Atlas” and, as mentioned earlier, describes an era, after earth is destroyed by humanity’s actions (wars, pollution, resource overuse etc) where a new insect-like humanoid race start developing at the remnants. The story is perfectly depicted in the album’s artwork, created again by Wes Benscoter (as almost every cover in CATTLE DECAPITATION discography), which shows a humanoid like cockroach resurrecting for the corpse of a (seemed burned) human. Simply amazing as well as worrying.
To conclude, “Terrasite” despite being a typical CATTLE DECAPITATION album, it does not refer only to their die-hard fans. Listen to it loud, give it some time to digest the tracks because they are quite complex, and I am sure you will enjoy it. Although I try to be subjective when rating an album, I will give “Terrasite” half a grade lower than “Death Atlas” simply because I absolutely adore the latter. Who knows, perhaps in five years from now I will like them equally, however I have the feeling that “Death Atlas” has more hits comparing to “Terrasite” which relies mainly on storytelling. In any case, every opinion is objective so go ahead, listen to the album and tell me yours.
Rating: 7.5/10
Editor: Dimitrios Georgouvelas
Related Link: CATTLE DECAPITATION – Official Page
