Metal Debate Album Review - Terrasite (Cattle Decapitation)

The Great Metal Debate Podcast

Welcome back to The Great Metal Debate podcast. Today we are looking at the album Terrasite released on May 12th via Metal Blade Records. A band's overall evolution can go in many directions but I feel Cattle have managed to outdo themselves with my personal favorite album Monolith of Inhumanity and they continued to kick ass with their 2015 banger The Anthropocene Extinction. 4 years we have become humanoid cockroaches trying to survive in a bleak uninhabitable world. The first track "Terrasitic Adaptation" is a decent openerbut doesn't really induce much head banging. Probably not a song I would choose to be on a live set list but it's okay. The next song "We Eat Our Young" has a very "Forced Gender Reassignment" feel to it but with a slowed chorus and even a slight soft spot moment when guitarist Josh Elmore clearly taps a foot pedal. Another thing to point out is how well the drums sound in the mix and I've noticed that David McGraw seems to really put those cymbals to great use. His capabilities are on full display in "Scourge of the Offspring" along with Travis showing off his full vocal range. "The Insignificants" begins with more blast beats and the traditional metal riff performed by the band's other guitarist Belisario Dimuzio. Traviscontinues to bludgeon us with his insane gutturals followed by a more haunting sounding spoken word section towards this song's conclusion. One of the heaviest songs on the albums is "The Storm Upstairs". I love how Josh and Belisario work together to bring us their chug riff and a guitar screech during the song's intro. Bassist Olivier Pinard helps to tie everyone's instruments together. The next song "... And The World Will Go On Without You" is a great song but despite the lyrics and vocals not being drastically different from a song from a popular hard rock band, Tell me it doesn't sound like the chorus from the song "Alone I Break" by Korn. The 3rd single and music video released for this album called "A Photic Doom". This song isn't quite as memorable as some of these other new tracks because the instruments have a cluster of noise structure as opposed to better riffs we've heard thus far. There's still no mistaking that this is indeed a Cattle Decapitation song but there's only one thing that seems to stand out about it. The classic stop and start moment during the halfway point followed by the first and only guitar solo on this entire album. I would like the spoken word section at the end of this song a lot more if it didn't sound so faded out. "Dead End Residents" is another track on this album that seems to be another filler track that lacks a lot of quality and disappointingly enough, the same can be said for the first half of the next track "Solastalgia" with the exception of Oliver's standout bass riff. However, there's a dark and gloomy redeeming point after that when the track suddenly emanates a sense of foreboding. The finale "Just Another Body" begins with an eerie vibe only to completely blow us all away with Cattle Decapitation giving us everything they got. Some of David's fastest drumming explodes on this one but obviously not for the entirety. There's a lot to unpack with this one with Travis further expanding his vocal prowess. From the mid-section to the conclusion, he manages to sound like a completely different person. Instead of giving this album a numerical score like I usually do, I have decided to go with a quick tier ranking list. Out of all ten of their studio albums, I would place this one at 7th place which beats out the previous album at 8th place. 9th and 10th place go to the first 2 grindcore albums. This isn't really a bad thing because the four albums I put before it are just my favorites that I have frequently revisited over the years. Terrasite is only worth a solid honorable mention.