cattle decapitation is exceptional in today's extreme metal scene. they play their very own mix of technical death metal, chaotic interludes and melancholic melodies accompanied by most extreme vocals. even though i liked them for quite some time my vinyl shelf was lacking any cattle records until metal blade came to my rescue. except of the first record of cattle decap, which is quite shite in my eyes, all their albums had been released on metal blade but only some on vinyl and a shitty picture disc among them.
in celebration of ten years of collaboration, the label re-issued their whole cattle decap back catalogue on vinyl in the course of the last year. it was real fun to get my hands on all those records and be able to recap the development of the cattle throughout their releases. so when metal blade announced the new cattle decapitation record called 'the anthropocene extinction', it was a no brainer to me to jump at the pre-order.
like all metal blade orders here in europe, the pre-order was handled by emp mailorder. they had a azure/black marble version limited to 300 copies and a clear sparkle version limited to 200 on offer. i was a little split because i think the azure/black marble one looks superior to the clear sparkle, but just like with the latest between the buried and me record the collector in me won over.
the musical content is again outstanding. if you liked 'monolith of inhumanity' already, you can snag a copy without worries. the cattle directly picked up where they left off on their last album from 2012. it's everything you want from these californian vegan deathers, brutal yet sophisticated. as the title indicates (anthropocene is the time span in which man became the greatest factor of influence on earth) the lyrics deal with the man made destruction of his very own habitat, and therefore the destruction of his very self.
the presentation is pretty good too. gatefold sleeve with awesome artwork. i love how the band always includes themselves into the art, as seen on the inner gatefold. if you look closely you can see the monolith of inhumanity included on the back of the sleeve. nice touch! for the first time metal blade came around with a custom dust sleeve with the label's logo all over it. in the end the clear sparkle vinyl looks cooler than i thought. lovely all together! metal blade. 2015.
