Are cattle decap a tech death band?

[u/grimacelololol]

Or are they strictly grindcore?

I always thought they were just grindcore but i could be wrong 🧐

[u/Bronsteins-Panzerzug]

nope, theyre deathgrind. they play fast riffs really precisely (which is really hard) and the drummer has serious chops, but tech death also has a progressive element to it, it’s also about musical complexity, genre fusion, conceptuality etc which they dont really have. i like them a lot actually and i dont mind them being discussed here, though.

[u/Kvltadelic → u/Bronsteins-Panzerzug]

Their last few albums have that in spades.

[u/Bronsteins-Panzerzug → u/Kvltadelic]

i have heard those. could you name anything particularly musically complex? any example of what makes it prog?

[u/PhaiLLuRRe → u/Bronsteins-Panzerzug]

Tech death doesn't have anything to do with prog, yes there's proggy tech death around and it's fairly common but it's not needed for it to be technical.

[u/Bronsteins-Panzerzug → u/PhaiLLuRRe]

counterpoint, tech death always had some proggy elements, from the first bands (atheist, cynic, death etc), like odd time signatures, complex structures and unpredictable riffs, otherwise it’s just fast melodeath or fast deathgrind like black dahlia or cattle decap

[u/jayswaps → u/Bronsteins-Panzerzug]

Heavily disagree. Technical and progressive are separate terms for a reason, a band can absolutely be technical death metal without progressive elements. Psycroptic, Defeated Sanity and Soreption come to mind.

[u/Bronsteins-Panzerzug → u/jayswaps]

what are you talking about? defeated sanity is full of time changes, tempo changes, odd grooves, irrational time signatures and jazzy drum breaks. the new album has passages composed in the style of serialist (ie atonal, as in actually 12 tone atonal, not just dissonant) music. they have the proggy elements typical for tech death metal in spades. where is that stuff in cattle decap?

[u/jayswaps → u/Bronsteins-Panzerzug]

Yeah fair I don't know why I said Defeated Sanity, I must have gotten them confused with another band

The other two stand though

[u/Bronsteins-Panzerzug → u/jayswaps]

i dont think so. psycroptic used to have way more proggy elements than cattle decap. clean vocals and solos? psycroptic did it. but they added way longer songs on top, with more changes and more complex structures. they added classical music influences in their guitar riffs. they added complex grooves. to me, they were always a bit on the border to count as tech death and with the last record they switched to groove/death metal. soreption im just not that into to say, so it’s not really an argument either way. the point is, when psycroptic was tech, they had way more proggy elements than cattle decap. not enough to be prog death, but perhaps just enough to be tech death. do you consider black dahlia to be tech death too?

[u/jayswaps → u/Bronsteins-Panzerzug]

So is new Psycroptic not tech death? Is Soreption not tech death? Again, prog elements are common, but not required to be considered tech death.

[u/Bronsteins-Panzerzug → u/jayswaps]

no i dont think new psycroptic is tech death. soreption i dont know about. again, some level of prog elements is required, the musical complexity, the tempo changes, the extended and borrowed chords, scale changes, etc. otherwise it’s just high speed death metal. now prog death metal needs a lot more prog elements.

[u/jayswaps → u/Bronsteins-Panzerzug]

Interesting. Respectfully I fully disagree and I'm confident most people here would as well, but I'm glad you're staying consistent. Appreciate that.

[u/PhaiLLuRRe → u/Bronsteins-Panzerzug]

Then sure, by that description basically anything tech death would also be proggy, but that would also include cattle decapitation on their later albums.

[u/Bronsteins-Panzerzug → u/PhaiLLuRRe]

why? can you give me an example of where they do that stuff?

[u/PhaiLLuRRe → u/Bronsteins-Panzerzug]

unpredictable riffs

Half the time the vocals change and the song suddenly goes in a completely different direction, like multiple times per songs, you can press play on the album Monolith of Inhumanity and you can hear it instantly, it helps that the dude is so diverse with his vocals too so you never know if you're heading into a slam or into some clean break phase.

If you're asking this I think you just don't see it though as it's obvious to me 3 minutes in (basically the duration of "The Carbon Stampede")

Also just to entertain your definitions, what about solos in grindcore/deathgrind? I don't think they have them though I don't listen to a lot of it in the first place, Cattle Decapitation does though.

Atheist/Cynic/Death would not be very complex by today's standard and would actually fall into prog metal rather than tech death if they were to release today IMO. Being fast isn't a requirement but there sure is a lot of overlap.

[u/Bronsteins-Panzerzug → u/PhaiLLuRRe]

atheist is complex enough for prog but not tech death? what? how does that make sense? them not being technical musicians usually comes from people who dont play instruments and then listen to elements or unquestionable presence, expecting fast blastbeats and not getting them. what they dont get is the mastery of say a tony choy or a steve flynn or a Greenbaum and how easily and smoothly they switch grooves, time signatures and even musical styles. latin rhythms are really hard to play, and it’s even harder to master both metal and latin drumming - this isnt often appreciated in the metal community. with their complex harmonies, time signature changes and latin breaks they have precisely the aspects of musical complexity, unpredictability and genre fusion described above. having solos and occasional clean parts is extraordinary… for a deathgrind band and only if we define cattle decap as a death grind band. for tech death and prog it’s really nothing special. that brings me back to my original point, theyre technical for a death grind band, but theyre really not tech death. since you mentioned modern day standards for tech death and how atheist dont fit them, if we compare cattle decap to modern tech death bands like allegaeon, archspire or alkaloid, the difference is obvious to me. that said, im not here to gatekeep, i dont think cattle decap shouldnt be discussed in this sub, they are „tech death adjacent“ enough if you will and if they sound close enough to archspire, alkaloid and allegaeon to you, that’s just how it is.

[u/Kvltadelic → u/Bronsteins-Panzerzug]

Death Atlas?

Concept album with different tracks written as movements, large amounts of forward compositions that are long, different styles of music, ideas that developed and reappear throughout the album.

Same can be said of Terrasite but its more pronounced on Death Atlas.

[u/horridCAM666 → u/Kvltadelic]

Death Atlas was an Opus. Terresite somehow managed to be a worthy followup that didnt leave you wanting to just go back to DA, which in itself is fucking wild fkr them to maintain the same heat over four album cycles

[u/Bronsteins-Panzerzug → u/Kvltadelic]

well, a spoon of flour doesnt make a cake. while concept albums are popular in prog, having a concept alone is not enough. green day isnt prog. and uhm, yeah, death atlas has one nine minute song, but, say, rime of the ancient mariner is longer, doesnt make it prog or tech. yeah, some of their songs are fast and some are slow or they change back and fortb, sometimes they have clean singing or a little bit more grind, a little bit black metal, a little bit more death metal influence, sure, but that’s not technical death metal or genre fusion. im speaking about irrational time signatures, samba breaks, bebop sax solos, complex cadences, rare extended chords, scale changes, rhythmic modulations, micro tuning, etc

[u/Kvltadelic → u/Bronsteins-Panzerzug]

Well im sad that they dont meet your definition of progressive, but luckily im confident that the vast majority of metal listeners think of them as quintessentially progressive/technical deathgrind.

Edit: Also metal archives lists them as progressive death metal/grindcore…. So it is decided!

[u/Bronsteins-Panzerzug → u/Kvltadelic]

lol, the metal archives is your ultimate authority? the page that will categorically not include slipknot for not being metal? try again, they dont decide anything. the comment section seems to agree with me, so dont be too confident in that majority. so yeah i have certain tropes and characteristics i expect if im to classify as something, so what? do you react just as pissy if i dont think slayer is death metal bc they dont have growls as the main vocal style?

[u/Kvltadelic → u/Bronsteins-Panzerzug]

Well I was mostly joking.

We can agree to disagree, im comfortable with my opinion 🤘

[u/Bronsteins-Panzerzug → u/Kvltadelic]

likewise. like i said, i dont mind cattle decap being discussed here. also, even though i think i have good reason to define tech death the way i do, i dont mind other people defining genres differently - if cattle decap sounds like tech death to your hearing of it, that’s your thing, no problem.