Cattle Decapitation

Deathgrind / metal band Cattle Decapitation was formed in San Diego, California in 1996. Founded by vegans Scott Miller (vocals / guitar), Dave Astor (bass), and drummer Gabe Serbian, the group went through a major change the following year with the departure of Miller and the arrival of lead vocalist Travis Ryan and bassist Troy Oftedal. In this new line-up, Astor moved from bass to drums and Serbian vacated his position on drums to play guitar. Cattle Decapitation released their debut EP, Human Jerky, in 1999 and followed that with two more EPs in 2000: Homovore and ¡Decapitacion! The lineup would change over the next two several years, finally settling on Ryan, Oftedal, Astor, and guitarist Josh Elmore by the time they released their first album, To Serve Man, in 2002. The band’s musical style had evolved since their formation and the band became one of the most popular bands in the deathgrind subgenre, which combined elements of death metal and grindcore. After the release of Humanure (2004) and Karma.Bloody.Karma (2006), the band finally managed to enter Billboard’s Heatseekers’ chart with 2009’s The Harvest Floor, which rose to Number 16. Monolith of Inhumanity (2012) was even more successful, hitting Billboard’s Indie and Hard Rock charts. The Anthropocene Extinction (2015) reached Number 100 on the Billboard 200 and landed in the German charts at Number 88. The group’s popularity began to rise in Germany and Death Atlas (2019) climbed to Number 56 on the album chart. With only vocalist Travis Ryan and guitarist Josh Elmore remaining from the line-up that recorded their debut album, Cattle Decapitation released Terrasite in May 2023, which reached Number 34 on the German Albums chart.