The Acacia Strain Release Y EP, Confirm New Album Slow Decay

This new ain’t gonna come as much of a shock to any fans who have been following along lately, but just to reassure you that’s all happening for really real:

• The Acacia Strain have, indeed, released their fifth two-song EP in as many months.
• That two-song EP is, as suspected, called Y. When you put together the single-letter titles of all the EPs to date, it spells out Decay.
• The band will release a new album, Slow Decay, on July 24 via Rise Records. It will consist of the ten songs released on the aforementioned five mini-releases, plus two additional cuts.

You can pre-order Slow Decay here. Then listen to the two tracks from Y — “One Thousand Painful Stings,” which features a guest appearance by Iwrestledabearonce’s Courtney LaPlante, and “EARTH WILL BECOME DEATH” — below. They’re both dynamite reminders of why The Acacia Strain are so great. “EARTH WILL BECOME DEATH” is a slow, constrictive meat grinder fueled by animosirt, and if the de facto breakdown that starts around 2:27 doesn’t make you wanna stomp your foot straight through the fucking floor, I assume it is only because you either have no floor or you have no feet. “Stings,” which opens with a quote from HBO’s Westworld, features frontman Vincent Bennett at his Vincent Bennettiest, which is to say, gloriously unsubtle. Bennett howling “Total fucking failures” is now the ringtone for all five of my kids.

But the best part is at the end of the song, when he just screams, “MISERY!”. That’s it. Just, “MISERY!”.

It’s like he’s singing everything I’ve ever felt.