The Acacia Strain not boring? Madness!

The Acacia Strain are one of those bands I've always been a bit "meh" about. My listening of TAS goes back to when I was a new kid to the whole hardcore scene; it was 2008, and I'd been to my first ever small-scale hardcore show with an international band, Blacklisted. Another show had been announced at the same venue for the end of the year with A Day To Remember and none other than TAS, and though I'd never heard either of the bands I was still excited and gave both a listen.

Being the melodic pop-punk fan I was, ADTR certainly held my interest more. TAS were the first "deathcore" band I'd ever heard; until then my listening habits had never dived to such dark depths. I wasn't used to the comparatively negative and angsty nature of their music, but their epic song "Smoke Ya Later" with it's melodic overtones and fun nature (breakdowns with clapping always win) really impressed me, it provided a good means of entry to the darker world of death metal-lenient hardcore. However since then, TAS haven't done much for me. I bought 3750 based off hearing Smoke Ya Later, but the remainder of the album left a lot to be desired in comparison. I bought their album Continent on the night of the show and it didn't knock me off my feet me either; it had a powerful intro track, but the intensity and thus my interest waned from then on. I had just found their music to be too samey and repetitive, and the heavily-downtuned and ethereal nature of the music just let it slide in one ear and right out the other. There were a couple of tracks with distinguishable features here-and-there, but other than than, listening to the TAS was just a chuggy, throbbing drag.

By no means did I totally disregard the band, however, and I have since given the occasional listen. So when I saw Wormwood had been released, I figured I might as well give it a try. If I didn't like it so much, it would collect dust in my library similarly to the previous albums. Perhaps TAS had done something new and I'd really enjoy it - it wasn't like there was anything to lose. I checked out some reviews and was a little deterred; they often commented on the repetitive nature of the album, and how it feels like one long song; particularly since this is their longest album to date, at over 45 minutes. It basically sounded like typical, run-of-the-mill Acacia Strain to me. I didn't get my hopes up. In fact, I might have lowered by expectations to the "this is going to be 45 bad minutes of crap" zone. However, upon giving the album a listen, I was pleasantly surprised. The first song came and went, and it was okay. The second song came along, and it got better. Third, fourth, fifth, sixth... they all held distinguishing features, and they all held my interest. The album got me in the zone and managed to keep me there for it's entire duration. I came away from the first listen pumped and alert, not something I can say for many albums. Even the sludgy, ever-slowing 5-minute-breakdown outro track titled "Tactical Nuke" had a certain level of appeal.

Having since given it more listening, I can say it's not a superb album. It does what deathcore does: it chugs and thrashes along, and is laden with plenty of hate-driven lyrics. It sweeps you up in an adrenalin-fueled sensory assault, spiked with the occasional melodic passage or memorable vocal motif. It does have it's stand-out tracks, more so than any other TAS album, and the fact that it spreads these out through the whole album leads to an up & down, rise & fall journey that keeps you engaged. Pair this with the almost sludge-like nature of the music, and the overall experience is what I imagine falling in and out of consciousness in the apocalypse would sound like. The songs aren't amazing and the album not 100% solid, but not many bands can do better and it's a vast improvement over the Strain's previous albums, and a great feat for the band. It's an enjoyable effort and worth a checking out if the music's up your alley.