THE ACACIA STRAIN „3750”

Music: Metalcore
Country: USA
Website: http://www.theacaciastrain.net
Duration: 29.21


Cool Songs: Brown Noise, Drawn and Quartered, Passing The Pencil Test, Smoke Ya Later.

Released over a year ago, ‘3750’ is the sophomore effort from New England’s ‘The Acacia Strain’. You may or may not have missed it the first time around, but certainly for local Australian fans who don’t like the ‘import’ tag associated with a lot of overseas releases, this album is now available through Stomp (sans the import tag) who are now looking after the mighty Prosthetic Record label in this country. Needless to say, The Acacia Strain’ are an American Metalcore act. Yes, there are tons of them and while the sound might be becoming just a tad redundant (some would say it’s been that way for quite a while) at the very least ‘The Acacia Strain’ are not the ‘complete’ copyists that others would have them labelled.

The first thing that you will notice about ‘3750’ (aside from its rather shortish 29 minute length) is its devastating heaviness. As trendy as this style might be, you can forget any sort of ‘commercial’ machinations being associated with this act. In the world of Metalcore, ‘TAS’ have to be one of the heaviest going around. This is a good thing. Checking the production credits, you will note one Adam Dutkiewicz (Killswitch Engage) was given the role – this surprised me a little considering the ‘brighter’ sound that he has captured for his and other bands. ‘TAS’ on the other hand have been afforded a bludgeoning thick as molasses style sound (hell, by Adam D standards, this is almost ‘muddy’), one that highlights their throbbing, rumbling low end one that adds a tremendous weight to their overall sound. Merge this with vocalist Vincent Bennett's mid range distorted growls and the impact is even more immense and brutal.

The Acacia Strain are also a little different is the musical stakes – as far as speed is concerned, ‘3750’ don’t actually subscribe to the theory. And while the traditional Euro/Swede harmonies do form a predictable red line throughout, ‘TAS’ are rather simplistic in their use of such influences. There is nothing remotely technical about their riff patterns either. In fact, this is possibly one of the most ‘down-beat’ metalcore albums you’re likely to hear. ‘TAS’ spend about 80% of their time opting for the slow, lumbering, sludge like ‘break down’ grooves over anything else. To be honest, I think they overdo it a little, but you can’t deny the overwhelming ‘doom’ like rhythm that this album invokes. It’s potent and punishing on all levels.

For the Metalcore fan, ‘The Acacia Strain’ is not an exceedingly different band and really expecting something groundbreaking is perhaps a little unfair on this band. Still, with THREE guitarists it is possible that creatively, the band could have explored their use a little further. The punishing slow throb if their music also wears a bit thin by the albums end (I think the shorter song focus was a good idea in this respect) However, these guys are a brutally heavy band that don’t exclusively rely on the well established Metalcore template, and with a bit more development in their song writing (as there’s nothing overly memorable on this) and a refinement of their ‘lumbering plod’ aesthetics, there could be much more to come from these guys.

note: 7.5

Tracklist

Carbomb
Brown Noise
3750
Smoke Ya Later
Extreme Wrath Of The Jhiaxus
Drawn And Quartered
Passing The Pencil Test
Halcyon
Sunpoison And Skin Cancer