It's not just that there won't likely be a better metal album than the new Cattle Decapitation released this year. It's that there probably won't be a better album, period. Metal (like most every other genre right now) is treading a lot of water; which is fine; it keeps you afloat; but it's hardly exciting, or worth working oneself into a lather over. Cattle Decapitation are an exception. The Killing Floor, their new one, is a masterpiece. It reminds me of those natural formations you see driving through Wyoming, big old weird-shaped rocks against a blank sky. They come into view, and you say: "what the fuck, dude, that shit is awesome." Maybe somebody in the car mentions Close Encounters or 2001 or some other lame Hollywood comparison, so you throw food at him and tell him to shut up and look at the goddamn awesome rock. Because the awesome rock is sort of its own description of itself. It's sufficient. It's enough.

That's how it is with The Harvest Floor; it sounds like some other stuff, it's not in any new genre. It is not past comparison to other bands or albums. It's just better at what it's doing than all of them; than any of them. I hear a lot of metal albums, and I like a bunch of them, but not many new ones do the job of transporting me from point A (Earth) to point B (some distant planet that's not on the charts). This one does. It is rare and wonderful and we should all be grateful for it.