“Excuse me m’am, who did you kill?” – “I killed everyone”
And with that chilling line preceding the monstrous chugging breakdown that is album opener ‘Doomblade’, you know you are most definitely listening to Acacia Strain’s latest cut, Death Is The Only Mortal.
On their sixth LP, The Acacia Strain do less to evolve their refined hybrid of gloom, death, and hardcore than it does to ram it directly down your throat. The immediacy of this band is frightening, as mid-tempo slogs hammer the listener into the ground under an avalanche of brutality.
Rhythms are at the foreground of this album, as the deeply detuned guitars disregard melody in favour of blunt force riffage. The Acacia Strain have incorporated elements of djent with this latest release, taking the influence of bands such as Meshuggah and Periphery, yet twisting it to fit in with their metalcore roots.
The lyrics continue along the nihilistic themes the band has been preaching since their inception. If you were to believe frontman Vincent Bennet’s guttural bellows, you’d be under the impression that the world is basically fucked. Lines such as “stop chasing your dreams/ they will never come true” drown the record in pessimistic despair, and sit along the typical death metal imagery in lines such as “my heart is made of wasps and my brain is made of flies.”
However it is Kevin Boutat’s drumming skills that are the most impressive, as he drives the band through with mechanical rhythms and an uncompromised attack. The bass is punchy and cranked up high, as the cymbals taking a back seat to the roll of the kick drum. ‘The Mouth Of The River’ demonstrates his technically competent footwork, as he alternates between a tight lock with the groove, to diverting on tangents of his own.
Ultimately, if you haven’t liked The Acacia Strain in the past, there is nothing here that is going to change your opinion. However, if you are looking for a continuation of the malice and razor sharp breakdowns of 2010’s Wormwood, then you’ve come to the right place.
This is the group at their maximum; pump it loud and prepare for a cathartic slow burn of brute force.
