By: Chris Markwell
Album Type: Full Length
Date Released: 26/12/2019
Label: Closed Casket Activities
“It Comes In Waves” CD//DD//LP
track listing:
1). OUR
2). ONLY
3). SIN
4). WAS
5). GIVING
6). THEM
7). NAMES
The Review:
Longevity is a key factor to most things these
days. The ability to keep going, keep
innovating, and keep enthusiastic about what you’re doing as the years drag on
are difficult things to maintain, especially in this dark new millennium of
ours.
It’s heartening, then, to discover that US
metalcore quintet The
Acacia Strain are
still with us. Not only with us, but
still creating music that shatters windows and brutalises your brickwork. Nice to see that, even in these tumultuous
times, some things remain the same.
At the tail-end of 2019, Vincent Bennett and
company released “It Comes in Waves”, through record label
Closed Casket Activities. This is their ninth album, following on from
2017’s “Gravebloom” (check it out as well, it’s great). Unlike previous offerings, however, “It
Comes in Waves” feels like the band casting off from the port of
metalcore, and exploring the Seven Seas of Metal. Intrigued?
You have every right to be.
I’m by no means saying that The Acacia Strain have abandoned their
roots: not at all, in fact. What I am
saying is that they’re taking their own style, and combining them with new
elements, to create what feels like a concept album. At seven songs and just about thirty minutes
long, it’s designed to be listened as one piece of music; even the track names
themselves spell out the sentence ‘Our Only Sin Was Giving Them Names’. Your listening experience won’t be impeded if
you just have one song on the go at a time – they all rip – but it’s better if
you give “It Comes in Waves” the time it deserves to crash
against your eardrums.
After 19 years of the full-on, laser-guided metal
attack that The Acacia
Strain normally
puts out, to have this piece of work created by them is not only surprising,
but heartening. It’s a piece that deals
with the themes of deities, of quantifying the unquantifiable aspects of gods,
and the overall belief that gods happily play games with the lives of humanity
for their own twisted amusement.
Throughout the album, elements of doom, death, and even
prog metal are present in the metalcore mix.
The music created is that strange, invigorating blend of audio assault
that makes you excited to find out what twists and turns your eardrums will be
subjected to next. If you’re expecting
2010’s “Wormwood” (like I was), prepare yourself for a
shock. A nice shock, at that.
Invigorating and, dare I say it, innovative, “It
Comes in Waves” is The
Acacia Strain traversing
new waters and finding fresh depths to not only their musical style, but also
to their own creative abilities.
“It Comes In Waves” is available HERE
Band info: facebook
