History & Biography David Astor and Gabe Serbian who were also members of The Locust formed San Diego-based Cattle Decapitation in 1996. The young band demonstrated influences from Napalm Death and Carcass.
The band releases a 7" entitled 10 Torments Of The Damned through Humanure Atrocities before losing its original singer/guitarist. Replacement is found in Travis Ryan who ironically was previously the drummer for local death metal band Strangulation. Strangulation later reformed as Disgorge. Ryan also sang for Carcass clone band Anal Flatulence. Astor and Serbian swap spots (former to bass and latter to guitar) at this point.
An LP entitled Human Jerky follows via Satan's Pimp Records. The trio delivered the Homovore album in the same year. The Decapitacion 7" appeared also in 2000 where the band delivered three of the Homovore songs in Spanish! The band plays numerous local shows and also ventures into Mexico. Bassist Troy Oftedal is added to the fold.
In 2001, the band appeared on Necropolis Records' Requiems of Revulsion: A Tribute to Carcass with the track Burnt to a Crisp. An early version of the song The Regurgitation Of Corpses is featured on Metal Blade sampler compilation Uncorrupted Steel. Consequently, the band signs with Metal Blade in early 2002. Produced and mixed by Juan Urteaga at Trident Studio, To Serve Man appears in July, 2002 and is immediately banned by Metal Blade's German distributor SPV for its gruesome cover art. The illustration, courtesy of Wes Benscoter, depicted a man whose innards are gushing out onto a platter. The band supported the album via an opening slot with Gwar. The band supports PETA and other Animal Rights organizations.
Cattle Decapitation was forced off the Cannibal Corpse 2002 US tour "due to a medical emergency at home." The band played a Bay Area show with Vio-lence, Testament and Death Angel in the spring of 2003. The band's next album was dubbed Humanure. In the spring of 2003, the band asked drummer David Astor to leave the fold due to his "inability to live up to the obligations of touring." Drummer Michael Laughlin from Creation Is Crucifixion replaced him. The band also entered the studio to record a new track for the Metal Blade compilation, Uncorrupted Steel 2. The song was a demo version of Cloacula: The Anthropophagic Copromantik.
2004's Humanure soon created problems for the band. The cover artwork proved controversial in Germany. Metal Blade's German distributor SPV refused to put the album into the stores, therefore in Germany Humanure was only available via mail order. A few months later the band would yield to censors picking the image on the back of its Humanure CD as the album's new cover art. The band's original cover artwork was the subject of censorship and difficult to find. The band began touring to promote the album. One bill had the band hit North America with The Black Dahlia Murder, Cattle Decapitation and Goatwhore. Another had the band touring with Gwar. The band announced Karma.Bloody.Karma. as the title for its July 2006 album. The band also recruited drummer J.R. Daniels formerly of Unholy Ghost and Royal Anguish. Drummer Michael Laughlin rejoined the group at the beginning of 2007. Like clockwork the group had yet another drummer to kick off 2008. David McGraw, formerly of Sleep Terror, was the new man. The band’s next album was called The Harvest Floor. Artwork came courtesy of Wes Benscoter. The 2009 album featured guest appearances by Ross Sewage of Impaled and Jarboe of Swans. Titled Monolith Of Inhumanity, Cattle Decapitation’s 2012 album was due in May. Cattle Decapitation would release a 7” in the summer of 2013. Your Disposal featured the B-side An Exposition Of Insides, which was a Japanese bonus track on the band's Monolith Of Inhumanity disc. Cattle Decapitation and Metal Blade Records would issue an album called The Anthropocene Extinction on August 7th, 2015. Cannibal Corpse, which spent the summer of 2015 touring Europe with stops at Hellfest, Wacken, Bloodstock, Brutal Assault, Party.San, Copenhell, Graspop, and numerous club shows, was part of a US tour that autumn with Cattle Decapitation and Soreption beginning October 8th, and running through November 7th. The Anthropocene Extinction was released through Metal Blade Records on August 7th and doubled first week sales over the previous release, The Monolith Of Inhumanity. The new album landed on the #41 position on the Top 200 Current Albums Chart in the USA.
Cattle Decapitation re-signed with Metal Blade Records in the winter of 2016. Cattle Decapitation would head back out on the road for a North American headlining tour before joining Brujeria for a trek across the US in October 2016 with Eternal Sleep and Piñata Protest joining them on select dates. The entire stretch ran from September 22nd through October 21st. Cattle Decapitation, Whitechapel, Goatwhore, Allegaeon and Necromancing The Stone were touring the USA as part of the Metal Blade Records 35th Anniversary Tour. Cattle Decapitation, which was working on a new album due in late 2019, recruited guitarist Belisario Dimuzio (Eukaryst) and bassist Olivier Pinard (Cryptopsy). Death Chopping North America tour was the monicker for the Canada and USA trek in autumn 2018 featuring Suffocation, Cattle Decapitation, Krisiun, and Soreption. This would mark Suffocation singer Frank Mullen’s farewell tour. San Diego-based Cattle Decapitation released a rarities record, called Medium Rarities, through Metal Blade Records on November 23rd. 2018. It included several demo tracks. Cattle Decapitation announced a new album, entitled Death Atlas, through Metal Blade for November 29th. Cattle Decapitation would headline the Geocidal Tendencies tour with Atheist, Full Of Hell, Primitive Man, Author & Punisher and Vitriol in North America in November 2019. The band was booked for the Rockstadt Fest in 2020, but the event was cancelled due to the pandemic. Cattle Decapitation, The Last Ten Seconds Of Life, Creeping Death and Extinction A.D. were touring the USA in January and February 2022. Amon Amarth, Carcass, Obituary and Cattle Decapitation announced a tour of Canada and the USA.
Cattle Decapitation released a new album, entitled Terrasite, through Metal Blade Records in May 2023. It was the follow-up to Death Atlas from 2019 and was produced by Dave Otero (Archspire, etc.) with cover artwork by Wes Benscoter. The Decibel Magazine Tour 2023 featured Dark Funeral, Cattle Decapitation, 200 Stab Wounds and Blackbraid. The group embarked on the Terrasitic Infestation North American headlining tour with Immolation, Sanguisugabogg and Castrator in November and December. The act was conducting the Chaos & Carnage 2024 tour with Carnifex, Rivers Of Nihil, Humanity’s Last Breath, The Zenith Passage, Vitriol and Face Yourself in the USA in the spring of 2024.
Reviews CATTLE DECAPITATION - TO SERVE MAN - METAL BLADE
To Serve Man, Cattle Decapitation's third album and first on Metal
Blade, is a speed-oriented blast of powerful metal with dual-channel vocals
throughout. While the focus is clearly on blasting drums and growled vocals,
a thrashy guitar tone akin to Vio-lence makes for a sharp yet different feel
to the proceedings. There is some melody present as the album's last two
songs Deadmeal and Chunk Blower demonstrate. That being said, To Serve Man
will never serve those into melody as the blasting is as incessant on these
tracks as anywhere else on the album. Furthermore lead guitar parts are rare
and those present are kept to a short duration. Those which do kick in are
well worth the wait though thus giving rise to asking why the band does not
see the need to incorporate more of the same. The album's biggest fault
though comes courtesy of the production. While both loud and clear, the
songs would have certainly benefited from several more overdubs. The songs are occasionally hollow-sounding and often sound thin. A prime example is the song Everyone Deserves To Die.
Manifestly inspired by Cannibal Corpse and Carcass, Cattle Decapitation
throws the listener for a loop with its vegetarian stance and advocacy for
Animal Rights. According to Metal Blade the album cover is already banned in
Germany by SPV the label's distributor. One has to wonder whether a record
company marketing ploy is at hand for there is little there that is either
shocking or that has not already been depicted elsewhere. Either way Cattle
Decapitation is a furious band with a different slant on the extremity proceedings.
CATTLE DECAPITATION - HUMANURE - METAL BLADE
Musical introduction is a harmonious acoustic piece that hits the listener with typical grindcore love. Some might label this CD a cookie cutter album, but due to the band's notorious sicko album cover art Cattle Decapitation have been banned from releasing any materials in certain countries because some find the album cover concept
offensive. Please! I am sure there are worse CD art out there; hey look at the band Meatshits!
Humanure being the bands fourth release to date these grind death gents vegans from San Diego
raise eyebrows to the meat (metal too) industry. Being a combo of death and grind metal these cats
sure fit the description of Humanure. Producer Bill Metoyer (Slayer, Six Feet Under and others)
gave this group a top notch recording as far as production goes with the current material. The group's
double vocal style of Travis Ryan gives an interesting aspect to the vocals ranging from hellish
growls to high pitched screams fitting so well with the rest of the twisted musical Brady bunch. Song
highlights are Scatology Domino, Reduced To Paste and Polyps. If the songs titles were not enough to crack a
laugh or two then surely the rest of the album might. Not your typical band, Cattle Decapitation shatters your listening taste buds dishing some of the best veggie cattle metal this side of the Mississippi! - Jussi
CATTLE DECAPITATION - KARMA.BLOODY.KARMA - METAL BLADE 
Cattle Decapitation looks as if it has lost most of its Cannibal Corpse sound, while having retained much of its Carcass influences. Oddly enough, it is the song Carcass Derrick that offers the most Cannnibal-esque sound on the entire album. The band has retained its brutality and extremism, although at time it appears that deliberate attention has been paid to incorporating other aspects and styles in order to spice things up. Brutality alone is fine by us here at Metallian Towers, yet slow interludes, samples arrangements, melodic licks and slurps and technical runs (Suspended In Coprolite for instance) are not scarce either. The band’s meat and potatoes, rest assured, are face-ripping pieces of brutality like the album’s title track. The horrific vocals are intact as well. Seventy points then for the music, the lyrics and the cover artwork designed to bring to a screeching halt all outsourced work for weeks. - Ali “The Metallian”
CATTLE DECAPITATION - THE HARVEST FLOOR - METAL BLADE
Hard to believe Cattle Decapitation is zoning in on veteran status, the band now the proprietor of a six record catalogue and, as of late, plenty of touring in support of its death-bred, vegan message. An interesting thing has happened to Cattle Decapitation along the way though, as the band no longer simply a whirlwind of cacophony and instead builds multi-faceted songs that’ll extend and expand, some for upwards of six minutes (a huge feat for a group like this). That’s not to say the concise statements aren’t around, but Cattle Decapitation has matured into a band that has almost outgrown its borderline joke namesake, the group now meticulous players with a sense of musical gravity that hasn’t permeated its records until now. That said, one does sort of miss the spontaneity.- James Tape
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