Cattle Decapitation – Humanure (2004)

May 12, 2024

Humanure was the first Cattle Decapitation CD I ever owned. I remember seeing the artwork on their website (which was completely decked out in this theme back in 2004/05 – damn I miss old websites) and I was immediately sold. At the time, the gory metallic mush that is their sound was super intimidating and impenetrable. I thought it was the coolest thing, though.

Going back through the band’s discography chronologically now, it’s easy to see the massive step up that Humanure was. It doesn’t sound like a different band or anything too drastic (although Dave Astor was replaced on drums), but the gore and disgust of the first few releases and the sporadic noodling of To Serve Man come together on Humanure in a more focussed way than ever before. Granted the songs are still considerably messy, but there is a technical precision underpinning it all, not to mention a solid production effort.

Humanure is probably the last true “gore” related Cattle Decapitation record, with the sound getting cleaner and more precise – and ranging in more dare I say meaty subject matter – from this point onwards.