Buzzgrinder Exclusive Stream: Cattle Decapitation – The Harvest Floor



We’re super excited that Metal Blade Records has partnered exclusively with Buzzgrinder to stream The Harvest Floor, the latest album from Cattle Decapitation, in its entirety from Jan. 16 to Jan. 19. Vocalist Travis Ryan has provided a song-by-song breakdown to explain the inspiration for the lyrics.

Press PLAY and grind out.

Track Listing
1. The Gardeners Of Eden
2. A Body Farm
3. We Are Horrible People
4. Tooth Enamel And Concrete
5. The Ripe Beneath The Rind
6. The Product Alive
7. In Axetasy
8. Into The Public Bath
9. The Harvest Floor
10. Regret & The Grave

1.The Gardeners of Eden
This is the last song we wrote for The Harvest Floor as we knew we needed to craft the way the album starts out and we already had the song that was going to be the last song on the album. I like subtle reference things like staying with formulas or patterns with mostly everything but the music, that’s their job anyways. Such as using Garamond and Edwardian Script fonts together and laying out the art similar to the previous release. The same goes for this song. This is yet another anti-Christian song kicking off the record. Whereas “Unintelligent Design” (2006’s Karma.Bloody.Karma) dealt with the idea that if in fact humans are the work of a creator, he’s certainly a fallible fuck then… “The Gardeners of Eden” focuses more on the “creation” as being a destructive juggernaut hell-bent on eroding the planet. The title raised an eyebrow or two within the other band members when I told it to them (I come up with song titles first then write the lyrics) and it almost didn’t come to fruition. I explained the whole “well, the world is like the Garden of Eden and us as humans trim and cut down the garden so that makes us “gardeners”” and I kind of just went with it and it works even though the term “gardener” isn’t very brutal. Funny thing is, it was inspired by the track “People” by Boyd Rice in which he refers to the natural order of life needing “a brutal gardener” once in a while to trim some of the fat(humans) off the land(planet earth).

2. A Body Farm
Musically this song sort of spills out of the first track as it is connected by feedback ring-out and an atomic bomb blast. The idea of the “brutal gardener” spills into this as well in the form of a sociopathic crime scene investigator that runs a “body farm”. A body farm is a controlled environment operated by forensic specialists that emulates environmental effects on cadavers. They literally place real dead humans on the ground and study everything from causes of death to time of death and so on. The problem is, this guy has one in his backyard and his subjects are works of his own doing: he is also a serial killer and his victims are also the ones that help him solve other crimes. I thought I was really fucking clever with this until our graphics guru Cain was reading the lyrics as he was laying out our album and said “hey, this is just like that show Dexter!” He proceeded to tell me about the show Dexter where the guy is a serial killer as well as a blood spatter analyst. I promise you, I had loosely heard of the name of the show before, but never had any idea what it was about before writing this song. I’ve started watching it and it’s actually really good! Excellent cinematography… Anyways, I need to get cable. This show is rapidly getting up there with my favorite show ever Curb Your Enthusiasm, even though it ripped me off… that was a joke.

3. We are Horrible People
We can really be nice people, anyone that’s let us crash at their place will agree, but if you hang out with us for a while, you’ll probably realize we do a lot of talking shit and cracking jokes about people. You kind of have to have a sense of humor when you’re in a band called “Cattle Decapitation”. When Josh and I say something really brutal about a band or a person or something atrocious and “not cool” or “P.C.” he always follows it up with “never mind us, we’re horrible people”. I always thought that’d be a great name for a song.

4. Tooth Enamel & Concrete
Everyone’s going to associate this song with the movie “American History X” which was a fucking stupidly horrible movie if you ask me, and this song in no way is a reference to that nonsense. It’s a brutal way to go: your mouth and teeth scraped into the concrete like an apple against a cheese grater. The reason I chose this was not because of that absurd role by Edward Norton, but in actuality I have a real issue with teeth, saliva, breath and mouths. I don’t know what it is, it just grosses me out sometimes. I hate hearing about it, I hate talking about it. So I thought I’d finally exhibit a little OCD on the album and reveal something that really disgusts me but is common every day stuff for everyone. Ugh, I can’t even stand typing about it. People think I must spit all the time because sometimes on stage I spit in the air and catch it. I started doing that because I didn’t want to disrespect the clubs we played by spitting all over their stage. But our old guitarist Gabe Serbian spits EVERYWHERE CONSTANTLY so I learned to just use it I guess. People would say “that was awesome when you spit in the air and caught it” and I would just say something like “that’s disgusting”. But dude, you write about eating feces and rotting corpses! I don’t know, I’m a weirdo I guess. So is Ross Sewage and he appears on this track during the really brutal chunky part doubling the low guttural vocals with me.

5. The Ripe Beneath the Rind
I think I saw this phrase on a commercial or in an ad or something and I quickly wrote it down. They were talking about fruit of course and I liked the metaphor of a human being compared to fruit. They have a skin that houses juicy insides, pretty much like every fruit out there. If features a rather “bluesy”, rockin’, Billy Squire-esque vocal part that I wanted to do to throw people off. This album is a lot about that – throwing everyone for a loop. We stepped it up musically and I don’t know if anyone really expected that. We also have some interesting special guests and you can pretty much always count on us to switch things up. Look ma! No breakdowns!

6. The Product Alive
This song features one of my favorite people on planet earth… Mr. Dino Sommese. He’s a hilarious fellow and is known for his work in the bands Dystopia, Carcinogen (a band that I attribute to being a big influence on my work in Cattle Decapitation) and the death-doom outfit Asunder. I saw him at a show the second or so night of recording at the new Oakland Metro in Oakland, CA and asked him if he’d like to be on it. My old band Strangulation played in Tijuana, Mexico with Dystopia in 1993 or so and he gave me the Carcinogen and Dystopia demo tapes which I still have and finally just transferred to my I-pod. I was very stoked to have him come be on the recording and those parts he appears on almost seem made for him. He would come into the studio every day after that and brought cases of whippets everyday and even gave me a whippet charger that sits on top of my refrigerator as a reminder/memento of the funny times we had while recording this. The lyrics to this song almost play out like one of Dystopia’s album covers… “Dead monolith – towering cesspool of Babel”. Indeed.

7. In Axetasy
I have a pretty funny story for this one. The lyrics refer to a “judgment stick of hate” which came from the title we gave to this mallet that we would carry with us in the van. We had it for a long time and then one night we played this miserable metalcore fest with Dillinger Escape Plan in Virginia. I think I introduced a song or dedicated it to Christian Hardcore kids or something like that. Well, later our guitar player got roughed up for a second by these dumb hardcore dudes. We heard that they were part of a Christian Hardcore crew from Maryland and that’s why I went off in that one YouTube video posted by MetalNick when we came through Baltimore… Anyways, Josh goes walking around the pit and a couple dudes just jump him and a few others joined and literally 3.5 seconds later they just disappear and Josh is left like “what the fuck!?!?!” ready to kill a bitch. So he told me about it and I was so hammered I ran and got the “Judgment Stick” and we went to find em and they were gone. So I was standing there a couple hours later with the Judgment Stick in my back pocket, talking to the guitarist of DEP and our tour manager runs up and says “dude, someone just ran off with your guitar!” to the dude I was talking to… Out comes the Judgment Stick! We ran out to a car that was just leaving and others were chasing it saying “that’s the guy!!!” We opened the passenger side door and asked if there was something they had that wasn’t theirs. The passenger yells “GO!” and they take off. I managed to lodge the Judgment Stick in the back window of the little car and they even started to pull over like there was something they were going to do about 15 dudes including that scary fuckin singer from DEP chasing em down. They took off and we never saw the Judgment Stick of Hate again.

8. Into the Public Bath
Another funny everyday thing that disturbs me is bath water and the idea of public pools. That’s just fucking gross. So, I figured I’d write a song about it. The backdrop is a Roman bathhouse-esque building that houses a rancid stew that us destroyers of humanity like to retreat to after a day of killing and bloodshed. Just yesterday our manager got the first promotional copy of the album and was reading the lyrics for the first time. He called me crying he was laughing so hard because of the phrase “crabs with tentacles stabbing your testicles”. It’s funny, but not that funny. I just like to use little wordplay type things like “Bukkake Tsunami” & “The Gardeners of Eden”. Helps deepen the tongue-in-cheek-ness that our lyrics and imagery always exhibit.

9. The Harvest Floor
This is my favorite song on the album because of the awesome power of Jarboe’s appearance. It was a track that I had in my head and knew the only way to do it right was to leave a little bit of it to chance and create it in the studio. I didn’t show anyone the parts until we went in to record it. I knew “Regret & the Grave” was going to be the last song so I wanted to do a sort of “death-dirge” intro for it. I asked Billy Anderson if he had any ideas for a guest appearance and since we knew that he had previously recorded one of our favorite bands ever, Swans, I kind of had it in the back of my mind that he might be able to hook up Jarboe for an appearance. He said “I can see if Jarboe wants to do a track” and I immediately said “ask her!!!” He sent her an email and she got right back saying that if he was involved, she’s game! That was the point where we went in and recorded the basics of the song, sent it to her and she sent back a miraculous 11 voice choir. We edited it a little, had to shorten it down a tad and created an epic. It’s an excellent precursor to the final title track. I love Jarboe and I still can’t believe she’s on our fucking record. We’re shooting a video for “Regret & the Grave” and we’re hoping to have an extended version with “The Harvest Floor” attached.

10. Regret & the Grave
This was actually the first song we wrote for the album. I was pretty surprised when I first heard it. Nobody has an idea of what to expect when beginning writing with a new member. I was pleasantly surprised when I heard it. They really have a knack for mixing uncompromising melody with our spastic grindiness. It was much later that we came up with the idea of adding some cello. We have always wanted to add some string sections to our stuff but of course will never have the production value of the likes of Dimmu Borgir and such so you won’t see us pulling out the local opera company to help us out. We befriended Jackie Perez Gratz a couple years ago when she came through with our friend’s band Giant Squid. I asked her to please be on our next record and she wholeheartedly agreed. Watching her work was intense. She must have been born with that damned thing in her hands. She started off kind of upset with me because I hadn’t given her all the material we wanted her to be on. The rest of the guys came up with this idea to have her on “We Are Horrible People”, which she did end up doing, but I thought Regret was the one we were talking about so I sent that to her. It’s much more fitting if you asked me then, but when I saw what they meant for the other song I agreed it was a good idea. So she did both songs and everything ended up ok. You can barely hear it, but right before I go into the “singy” vocals 3/4ths of the way through, Jarboe pops in again real quick. That was Billy’s idea and it seemed to work. This is probably my favorite song to play live because it has so much style, it’s intense and I get to actually “sing” on it. I won’t go into the lyrics; this song is up for everyone’s interpretation. We’re currently shooting a video for it and I’m hoping it will be as epic as the song itself. We’ll see… ever the pessimist.

Written by Matthew Moore

44 Responses to “Buzzgrinder Exclusive Stream: Cattle Decapitation – The Harvest Floor”

  1. On 01/16/09 12:29 AM, Ian said:

    great albulm guys i already was enjoying body farm on a daily basis and this is gonna one of the best albulms this year great job guys

  2. On 01/16/09 1:05 AM, Bebo said:

    Awesome, can’t wait to get a copy

  3. On 01/16/09 1:45 AM, lance said:

    this album is insane !!!!! best deathgrind album in years if you ask me !!!!!!!!

  4. On 01/16/09 3:09 AM, Ed said:

    Very impressive work, you fellas really stepped it up! It’s nice to get some insight into the songs as well! Keep up the good work!

  5. On 01/16/09 3:21 AM, joey said:

    amazing album even better than i expected!

  6. On 01/16/09 5:45 AM, Zakin said:

    Amazing, right up there with the new Napalm Death. Probably better.

  7. On 01/16/09 6:04 AM, Tony said:

    Shit. This is Cattle’s best cd and I am really glad I pre-ordered this masterpiece.

  8. On 01/16/09 6:13 AM, Marko (cro) said:

    Travis, in my opinion your vocal is one of the best on the world death/grind scene, shit i’m amazed…songs are very inovative and brutal
    I think that the drummer made a significant shift in the approach to music also
    I hope to see you guys someday in croatia…greetings. (sorry on bad english)

  9. On 01/16/09 7:38 AM, Jay DiNitto said:

    Never was into this band but I will give this a listen.

    Yay for bands with full album streams. This needs to happen more often.

  10. On 01/16/09 7:44 AM, psyclonchrist said:

    surely is the best album of Cattle Decapitation!
    I can’t wait a copy!

    GO ANTI-HUMAN!

  11. On 01/16/09 8:11 AM, Matthew Moore said:

    Yeah – Metal Blade hooked us up big time!

  12. On 01/16/09 8:18 AM, Joe said:

    I loved every disgusting second of this cd, I can’t wait to get it! Thanks for being interesting and not littering every song with 86 breakdowns… gore not core :-)

  13. On 01/16/09 9:52 AM, Jay DiNitto said:

    “GO ANTI-HUMAN!”

    Oh God…the contradiction is too much to handle.

    Not a bad release. I don’t like straight-up grindcore, but they do a lot of interesting things to keep it from being generic. The gore stuff is cheesy and overplayed to me, so I’m glad I can’t understand any lyrics. Superb vocals.

  14. On 01/16/09 12:52 PM, buttmunch said:

    Gore IS cheesy! Travis knows that! But think to yourself, how many bands are doing gore stuff that are as big as they are! Probably ONLY cannibal corpse and you can’t deny that band! plus if you read the lyrics, you’ll see that it is MUCH MORE than just gory lyrics!

    THIS WILL BE THE ALBUM OF THE YEAR!!!

  15. On 01/16/09 1:41 PM, decayed420 said:

    SICK ALBUM!!!!!!! GORE NOT CORE

  16. On 01/16/09 2:53 PM, Travis said:

    UH… Not sure if anyone noticed or not but the song THE PRODUCT ALIVE plays twice in a row.

    PLease fix this.

  17. On 01/16/09 3:06 PM, Jason said:

    Please fix now, I cannot tolerate this!

    Oh wait…

    Hmm not a bad album, not a good one either.

  18. On 01/16/09 3:35 PM, buttmunch said:

    ^^^ awwwww… did the little cocked-hat hardcore kid get upset by travis’ stories? pooooor little baby. go listen to your despised icon records trendy bitch

  19. On 01/16/09 3:54 PM, seth said:

    i’ve seen Cattle Decapitation a few times and never really bothered with them, but this is great. good work. i hope it sells a lot of copies!

  20. On 01/16/09 4:32 PM, CDfuckin'SUCKS said:

    …wow it sounds just like all their other albums

    …like low quality shit that’s over rated and really shitty

    jesus h christ i hate vegetarians now

  21. On 01/16/09 4:36 PM, steven o shady said:

    its streaming at a low bit rate on purpose you fucking idiot.

    Cattle rules! I’ll definitely be picking this one up!

  22. On 01/16/09 4:58 PM, Jay DiNitto said:

    This is in danger of morphing into a Pete Wentz/Jeffree Star/MCR thread.

  23. On 01/16/09 5:46 PM, BOBOLA OF MOMANGOLA said:

    FUCKING BEST CD BY YOU GUYS YET! IVE BEEN A HUGE FAN FOR YEARS AND YOU GUYS REALLY WENT IN A DIFFERENT BUT AMAZING DIRECTION, NOT LIKE ALL THE OTHER PISSANTS THAT FOLLOW THESE NEW FUCKING TRENDS. SIMPLY KICKASS

  24. On 01/16/09 6:07 PM, chad said:

    more beautiful music to fall asleep to. i love this band.

  25. On 01/16/09 7:21 PM, Jenny said:

    I like it; it sounds great. \m/

  26. On 01/16/09 7:28 PM, The Pink Panther said:

    MCR is better :)

  27. On 01/16/09 8:11 PM, Matthew Moore said:

    Sorry about the double play – I’m not sure how I did that. I’m updating the file right now.

  28. On 01/16/09 8:37 PM, decayed420 said:

    post when the songs starts and ends!

  29. On 01/16/09 8:47 PM, metalvinny said:

    This will make Cattle fans out of people who previously never gave Cattle a chance…this is SO good. Regret & the Grave is easily my favorite.

  30. On 01/16/09 10:53 PM, magnumforce2006 said:

    This definitely sounds a lot more interesting than anything I’ve heard from the band previously.

  31. On 01/17/09 12:07 AM, anonforuz said:

    never heard them before, but my mind was blown. that album is awesome

  32. On 01/17/09 8:43 AM, TDWP Fan said:

    This site is sooo much better than Blabbermouth

  33. On 01/17/09 11:10 PM, Andrew said:

    This album is amazing love the vocals even better range i was about to turn it off when he kinda squealed yet i turned it up it sounded i can’t describe it like an really pissed off farm yard animal. LMAO best way i can’t put it into words, can hear many bands from ‘CD’ the cd should sound way way better can’t wait to play this on the way to work.

    5/5

  34. On 01/18/09 1:49 AM, shaftchopper said:

    CATTLE DECAPITATION frontman Travis Ryan and the reunited lineup of the legendary Santa Barbara metal/punk rock hybrid SNOT will be the featured guests on this Sunday’s (January 18) edition of Indie 103.1 FM’s specialty metal program “Chaos with Full Metal Jackie” at 10:00 p.m. PST (1:00 a.m. EST Monday morning).

    To listen to the program live via the Internet, go to this location. The program also airs on KNAC.COM Monday nights between 7 and 9 p.m. PST (and again on Sunday mornings between 7 and 9 a.m.).

    Note: Even though Indie 103.1 FM has ceased terrestrial radio broadcasting as of this past Thursday (January 15), it will continue to operate on the Internet.

  35. On 01/19/09 6:40 AM, unwesen said:

    Awesome! I’d only heard *of* Cattle Decapitation before, but never heard any of their songs. This already sounds like it’ll be a classic in my collection – a definite buy!

  36. On 01/19/09 2:44 PM, rev erebus said:

    i love cattle decapitation so when i heard about the new album i did all in my power to not listen to any of it till it comes out here in ireland but couldnt help myself

    its not one of my fav album of theres

    vocals are still as brutal as always

    cant wait to get it

  37. On 01/19/09 7:27 PM, David said:

    @Jay: Almost every thread has that potential nowadays, it seems like.

    As for Cattle Decaf, I’ll pass. I haven’t been in a metal mood lately, so I’ll stick with what I’ve been listening to right now: the OC Supertones.

    Now, if THEY came out with a new cd, I’d be all o’er that.

  38. On 01/19/09 7:28 PM, David said:

    @Jay: Almost every thread has that potential nowadays, it seems like.

    As for Cattle Decaf, I’ll pass. I haven’t been in a metal mood lately, so I’ll stick with what I’m listening to right now: the OC Supertones.

    Now, if THEY came out with a new cd, I’d be all o’er that.

  39. On 01/19/09 7:28 PM, David said:

    Dagnabbit. Sorry about that.

  40. On 01/19/09 7:41 PM, Matthew Moore said:

    I was wondering what exactly a decaffeinated cattle would be like. Probably a lot less tasty, and weak.

  41. On 01/19/09 7:43 PM, David said:

    Vegan burgers! ZING!

  42. On 01/19/09 8:11 PM, mapplethorpe said:

    what a fucking piece of shit. horrible music.

  43. On 01/21/09 8:52 AM, Jay DiNitto said:

    “I was wondering what exactly a decaffeinated cattle would be like. Probably a lot less tasty, and weak”

    Matt, I’ve been thinking of cattle super heffed-up (hah) on caffeine and it’s making me LOL.

  44. On 01/21/09 5:09 PM, David said:

    I had some pretty disturbing dreams last night, and I know there was a cow involved…oh wow yeah…I remember. I was at some weird fair of sorts, and they had this cow that had been starved for a long period of time and on a chain, and the second they put a body out in the open, he went over to it and devoured the poor corpse. It was. Creepy. Too much Left 4 Dead for me.

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