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sinceileftyoublog · 5 years ago

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Cattle Decapitation & Their Weird Peers

BY JORDAN MAINZER

Opening with a tape recording of “Anthropogenic: End Transmission” and their backs turned to the audience, San Diego extreme metal masters Cattle Decapitation gave a warning to the crowd before ultimate confrontation. Their new album Death Atlas and its predecessor The Anthropocene Extinction chide mankind for its adverse affect on the environment, and not just the carnivorousness that the band rejects with the lifestyles they live. They tackle everything from our consumer culture and the littering of the oceans to our self-important attitudes towards the nature that precedes us. Importantly, Thursday at Metro, the band played pretty much equally from their new and previous album. Cattle Decapitation aren’t the type of band to fall prey to the touring cycle of a specific album, decided by a record label; instead, they tour on their ideas and belief systems.

The performances themselves were, as expected, stunning, vocalist Travis Ryan able to transition from a guttural growl to a shrill trill at a moment’s notice on tracks like “The Geocide” and “Time’s Cruel Curtain”. And the new band members, guitarist Belisario Dimuzio and bassist Olivier Pinard, gave the songs mighty grooves as the band worked at a breakneck pace with minimal banter; they fit right along with guitarist Josh Elmore and drummer Dave McGraw. Overall, the pure energy they exuded provided levity to the songs’ grim subject matter but importantly didn’t belie or distract from the band’s ultimate goal. Cattle Decapitation want us to look in the mirror, not to promote blissful ignorance among the masses, and they held the ugly reflection right to our face at Metro.

The other bands to play the show were never going to be on the same ideological wavelength as Cattle Decapitation--at least as presented in their music, as there are only so many metal bands that explicitly sing about the environment--so the best bet was for something aesthetically fitting. Originally, Maryland grindcore greats Full of Hell and one-person doom project Author & Punisher were set to perform alongside Florida death metal legends Atheist and Portland extreme metal band Vitriol. Unfortunately, Full of Hell’s van was stolen earlier in the tour, and so they had to drop out. And on the day of the show, Author & Punisher’s transportation broke down. Local blackened death band Immortal Bird was set to replace FoH (I only caught the tail end of their set, but their new record Thrive on Neglect is very good and worth checking out), and at the last minute, local prog metal weirdos Gigan stepped up to replace A&P.

It’s remarkable how much of a darker, different vibe the show would have had with the original lineup. Instead, especially Gigan, combined with Atheist's joyful thrash, the sky high side of Cattle Decapitation, and pit-inducing blasts of Vitriol, rendered the show more psychedelic, out there, and ultimately life affirming. Their songs are rife with complex time signatures and wah wah pedal wizardry; the vocals of Jerry Kavouriaris were low in the mix, perhaps unintentional but a welcome addition to the haze of the performance. Founding member Eric Hersemann is responsible for many different instruments on their recordings, and he brought even the theremin to the Metro. The structured noise of the compositions allowed the band to truly toy with your expectations, faking you out as to when they would finally end their last song. They walked off stage with the sound still going, because how would they end a set so unceasing in its ambition?

Atheist has released only four albums of their trademark technical death metal over their 30 years under the moniker. The most recent, 2010′s Jupiter, was their first in 17 years. Of the bands that played Thursday, they were the outlier in not only their longevity. For one, their tone was way less serious; vocalist Kelly Shaefer, clad in a headband and an Author & Punisher shirt, was a classic showman, holding the microphone to the crowd during choruses, miming guitar siren guitar solos, ruffling the hair of bassist Yoav Ruiz-Feingold while he played audible slaps. (Drummer Anthony Medaglia, it’s worth noting, was dressed more ridiculously, wearing a t-shirt with Nicolas Cage’s face on it and American flag shorts.) Their metal, too, was traditional, spurring of many a circle pit. “Metal don’t age; it just gets better,” Shaefer declared, introducing “Your Life’s Retribution” by saying, “Some old dogs might recognize this song.” The most rapturous audience reaction? That would be to “Mother Man”--I witnessed a fan leave the pit, out of breath, only to charge back in when he heard the song’s opening chords. As old school as they were, though, Atheist stay relevant because they live by Shaefer’s words: “Don’t be afraid to be weird.”

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