Even in the grander scheme of extreme metal, I think few bands stand-out quite as robustly as Cattle Decapitation. From their disturbingly apocalyptic imagery and lyricism, invoking images of man-made self-extinction through pollution, animal consumption, and aggressive exploitation of natural resources, to their bombastic instrumental technicality, this vegan California deathgrind band has been quite an odd one out for a while. And even though some of their early material kinda devolves into aimless gimmickery and very unidealized songwriting at times, they've always had a very strong conceptual focus. And it's on their latter side of their career, where they grow out some songwriting muscles. Even if that comes at a cost of campiness.