The Acacia Strain guitarist on why ‘Slow Decay’ was released as five EPs

The Acacia Strain guitarist Devin Shidaker spoke on last week’s episode of The MetalSucks Podcast about the group’s decision to slow-trickle their latest EP release Slow Decay, saying it kept the songs fresher in fans’ minds.

“With Slow Decay it was a similar idea to It Comes In Waves,” Shidaker began.

“We didn’t want to do the same thing with it being a surprise release, but we thought about how everything has changed over the past few years with how we consume music,” he explained.

“When you put out a record, you have this huge hype train of everyone going ‘the new record is out on this day’ and ‘check it out on this day.’ Everyone’s worried about their first week sales, there’s all this build-up, everyone’s talking about your record for a week when it comes out. And then you do some tours on it but you’re not keeping it in everyone’s mind.”

Shidaker added that the decision to break the album into several parts was an active effort to keep their new tracks “fresher” in fans’ minds.

“So we figured it we break this up and release it slowly like we have been, basically two songs a month in EP form, it gives people something to look forward to and it keeps it fresh in everyone’s mind. Like if I listen to the first two songs that came out and then two more songs come out, I’m gonna listen to the first two again as well to see how they relate to each other. And I think it’s been working pretty well for us.”

He added, “They’re staying fresh in everyone’s mind as opposed to just being like, ‘oh yeah, forgot about that.’”

Check out ‘Cauterizer’  by The Acacia Strain:

Get unlimited access to the coverage that shapes our culture.

Subscribe to Rolling Stone magazine

Subscribe to Rolling Stone magazine