October is meant to be a spooky month, culminating in Halloween. Aside from some seeing some incarnation of the Misfits, the best musical way to prepare for the season is a good old-fashioned death metal show, especially one surrounded with horror imagery.

On Tuesday October, 13th Reverb in Reading, PA was host to Cannibal Corpse, Cattle Decapitation and Soreption.

My press commitments only allowed me to catch the last song from Soreption’s set, but from what I was able to gather, the crowd had plenty of love for these Swedes.

The pit began to fill up for Cattle Decapitation and they were very liberal in playing new tracks from ‘The Anthropocene Extinction‘. This band has really been hitting their stride over the last few years (a rare feat from a band that is on the cusp of their 20th year) and this lineup’s chemistry is undeniable.

As perhaps the definitive and certainly the biggest death metal band, Cannibal Corpse headlined the event and whipped the pit into a frenzy. Playing a wide selection from their whole career (of course plenty of Chris Barnes’ era tunes were represented), they were everything their reputation had built them up as being.

Josh Elmore (guitarist) from Cattle Decapitation was kind enough to answer my questions outside before they played. We talked about their new album (in the running for my favorite album of the year), how four wildly different people with different points of view can come together, how to narrow down a setlist from being the headliner to being the opener, the band’s visual aesthetic, how to deal with painting yourself into a corner when you (thematically) wipe out the human race, and more!

Listen to Cattle Decapitation’s Josh Elmore’s interview below:

I had the pleasure of being joined by George ‘Corpsegrinder’ Fisher for a chat on their bus. We talked a little bit about their latest release ‘A Skeletal Domain’, George’s 20th year in the band, his role and how it has evolved, his (at this time) still unnamed project with Adam D, their beer (revealed to the press a day or two after this was conducted) called Amber Smashed Face.

This was, by far, my longest interview. It is a little bit more of an actual conversation because it naturally went into some different directions and because George wasn’t necessarily in a position to answer some questions about lyrical themes and the actual songwriting. Plus, the dude just has the gift of gab and in order for me to try to respect his time, I had to make some judgment calls about what to cut.

All in all, it was a great talk and I hope you have as much fun listening to it as I did conducting it.

Listen to Cannibal Corpse’s George ‘Corpsegrinder’ Fisher’s interview below:

Pick up Cattle Decapitation’s The Anthropocene Extinction album on iTunes HERE or on Amazon HERE.

Pick up Cannibal Corpse’s The Anthropocene Extinction album on iTunes HERE or on Amazon HERE.

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When J.J. Ellis isn’t writing as the Allentown DVD Examiner, his Decent Exposure Radio can be heard on the air every Friday night from 10:30 to midnight (EST) on WXLV 90.3 FM or wxlvradio.com!