Grind’s impenetrable wall of noise – even that of its death-infused factions – is difficult by design, most likely to keep the uninitiated away. The issue, though, is that a wall of noise is fairly easy to create: drummer that can play fast blastbeats, guitarists of varying degrees of skill playing in the upper registers, screaming or growling or gurgling singer, bass player optional. Though it’s true for any metal genre, it seems twice as true for grind: the best grind makes sense of the chaos, eschewing the paint-by-numbers quality of the (tens of?) thousands of unsuccessful blastmeisters. Though Cattle Decapitation may seem like another grindy death metal band riding a gimmick, The Harvest Floor, their latest, is a legitimate achievement, skillfully walking the razor-thin line between chaos and precision. Through 37 minutes of jumping between grind, death metal, and brief forays into black metal, the band never seem to sweat. Making sense of the ridiculous speed grind requires a level of admirable expertise; Cattle Decapitation have the sort of skills that put them squarely at the head of grind’s noisy pack.
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