NOT SHERRIF I LIEK THE NEW THE ACACIA STRAIN ALBUM — THEY WENT FULL DJENT :(

THE ACACIA STRAIN’s 2010 album Wormwood just might be the heaviest album of all time (the DEMOLISHER EP is disqualified for not being a full length), and when it came out I was so blown away by the sheer brutality of the album that all I could say was literally “HOLY FUCK THIS IS SO HEAVY I JUST SHIT OUT OF MY DICK” (srs, look through my old Facebook updates if you don’t believe me).

So it is fair to say that I had very, very high expectations to the followup Death Is The Only Mortal, which just dropped on (lol) Rise Records. I definitely like it, but I would be lying if I said that it held a candle to Wormwood. You see, the problem is that like many other deathcore bands these days they went full djent. YOU NEVER GO FULL DJENT. A couple of examples:

As you can see from this song, they have largely replaced the ridiculously brutal chugging of their last album with twangy, open-string riffing. I’m not saying it’s bad, but I don’t listen to TAS to hear non-brutal MESHUGGAH riffs. Sad 4 my mosh boner :(

“Go To Sleep” could easily be a Youtube Axe FX 2 demo.

This is probably the best song on the album imo, and could have been on Wormwood aside from the skronky bits at :35 and 3:20. Definitely feeling the ‘BLEH!’ at 2:30!

My guess is that since they have largely walked away from the hardcore influences of their past material and turned into a decent but not-so-remarkable djent band, they will finally become popular with the IMNs who should have liked them all along (sort of like how they didn’t like JFAC until they stopped doing something kinda new and turned into a generic, 90s-style death metal band). I predict the reception to this album will be clearly divided along genre lines: hardcore kids like me will say its OK but not as good as the last one, metalfags will fill the Youtube comment section with stangry butthurt responses about how it is the best thing they’ve ever done and if you don’t think so you are a moran who doesn’t know anything about how to play guitar.

-Sergeant D.

Sergeant D. shits out of his dick every day at Stuff You Will Hate.