Wormwood
from The Acacia Strain
[July 20, 2010 - Prosthetic]
Review by Phil FreemanREVIEWS
FILE UNDER: A slow death(core)
The Acacia Strain are in no hurry. The songs on their fifth album, Wormwood,aim for the groove of Pantera, but slowed down to Crowbar speed; the band play an ugly, crawling style of deathcore, with some of the most creepily misanthropic lyrics in all of extreme music. Vincent Bennett’s delivery makes lines like “Your blood will blanket the earth/I am the shot heard ’round the world,†weirdly believable, not just more of the hyperbolic hostility metal bands have been trafficking in since the ’80s. The music isn’t all it could be, though; the songs feel longer than they actually are, and digital production trickery does little to make them exciting. The closing instrumental “Tactical Nuke†is so downtuned and dragging it sounds like it’s playing at the wrong speed, something which should be impossible on a digital device.
“BTM FDR”
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07/27/2010 - 4:43pm by Ashley Mcmullen
I honestly can not believe how low of a review AP gave this album. I feel as if AP has some sort of vendetta against The Acacia Strain, solely because this is one of the few times I've heard about them in the magazine, and what a surprise, it's not the most positive thing they could've said. Regardless, in my opinion, I think this album is best to date. Yes, the lyrics may be as AP quotes "elementary" but why not make the songs a little but more memorable for the fans? The lyrics may have been more sophisticated in the past few albums, but if you think back to any of their more popular songs, they have some sort of rhyming and/or dumbed down lyrical content. Anyways, in my overall opinion, I think the band should keep up this style as opposed to the flip flip mesh of different genres, heard in past cd's. Vincent's vocals on this album are far more projected as well, more of an understanding as to what he's saying. The first song, featuring Jamie Jasta, is by far my favorite, the sound clip in the beginning really hypes up the song. Lyrically, my favorite song is JONESTOWN, both versions kill it with or without the bornlow dude.
Great cd, Wormwood-five stars from this girl.
Great, but...
07/21/2010 - 12:48am by Dominic T
I'm an Acacia Strain fan, so this album still excites me even after the 10-ish times i've listened to it so far.
Lyrically, i think Continent was stronger. Occasionally, the weirdly believable lyrics and delivery... aren't believable!
However, musically, it builds upon and branches out from The Dead Walk and Continent.
The album comes off as something that i would describe as "The B-sides of Continent"... which is awesome if you love Continent (which, as you can tell... i love it).
The biggest negative of the album is definitely Tactical Nuke... as far as instrumentals go, they've done way better!
All things considered - must have if you so much as like their previous work. But definitely not the place to start if you don't.
