Extreme Sound, “Extreme” Lifestyle? Investigating Cattle Decapitation’s Stance on the Human Impact on the Environment and Animal Rights

With insight into the lyrics and lifestyle choices of some of themembers of the Californian deathgrind band Cattle Decapitation, thisarticle explores the connection between their extreme sound and the“extreme” messages in their work. Namely, the band’s current and formermembers have been vocal about their stance on animal cruelty and humanimpact on the environment, also reflected in the band’s lyrics and imagery.Their positions are supported by, to use the terms coined by Keith KahnHarris, the utilization of discursive, bodily, as well as sonic transgressions.With that in mind, the goal of this paper is to examine the ways in whichthese transgressions, or rather, forms of “extremism,” collaborate, reinforce,and strengthen each other. This will be achieved by questioning the pointsof contact among the movements concerning political/environmental/animal rights and the sounds deemed extreme in contemporary society.