While two decades may be the lifespan of many bands, The Acacia Strain are showing no signs of slowing here on ‘Step Into The Light’. The far more expectant part of their double release when compared to the sludge monolith of ‘Failure Will Follow’, this is a 25 minute barrage of violent, visceral deathcore that has Acacia sounding just as hungry, just as dangerous, and just as excellent as you’d hope.

Speed is the name of the game on ‘Step Into The Light’, as evident in each of the three opening tracks clocking in at under two minutes apiece. ‘Flourishing’ is a rough-around-the-edges thrill ride that hears vocalist Ethan Bennett sound more pissed off and urgent than we’ve heard him in a hot minute. ‘Calf’s Blood’ is just as explosive, with the whole band’s bloodlust thrust into the spotlight, while ‘Chain’ features Chamber vocalist Jacob Lilly to inexplicably dial up the intensity further. All told, these three songs barely last five minutes but the damage is doled out quickly. You feel every crunching guitar, every tsunami of drums, every monolithic bass line in the very pit of your being.

The tracks open up a bit more from that point, with ‘Fresh Bones’ coming in at a leisurely two minutes and 29 seconds, but they’re not taking their foot off the gas. Instead, the attack is just as brutal and more sustained – they’ve tasted blood and they want the whole meal now. This leads into a pair of highlights at the heart of this record in ‘Teeth Of The Cursed Dog’ and ‘Open Wound’. Quintessential cuts from the pantheon of The Acacia Strain’s tried-and-tested heaviness, they are utterly engrossing and irresistible in how they pummel, pound and pulverise everything in sight.

‘Sinkhole’ calls upon Sunami’s Josef Alfonso to help dish out the aural terror over four punishing minutes that lean much more heavily into the ‘-core’ part of their deathcore tag, while closer ‘None Of Us Asked To Be Here’ hints at what darkness lies within ‘Failure Will Follow’, teeming as it is with doom and sludge.

It’d be easy to point to ‘Step Into The Light’ as simply being what we’ve come to expect from The Acacia Strain. While yes, it is a continuation of everything they’ve mastered over their past 10 albums, this is them at the top of their game. They apply their experience to cut deep and true – they don’t just grab a knife and slice at you, they hold that blade over the flame so that it glides through flesh with no effort at all. They are masters of their craft that the scene cannot get enough of and when it seems that bands of their age are taking new lanes into softer directions, The Acacia Strain feels like one of the last bastions of brutality, an evergreen monument to the pit.

‘Step Into The Light’ is a superb release that nails The Acacia Strain’s reputation as one of deathcore’s most vital proponents. The content may not hold many surprises but what is a surprise is how they’re able to take everything you know and love of this band and take it to a new, unimaginable level.

JACK TERRY

But the difference is that the surprise second album ‘Failure Will Follow’ – announced a month after the first – is The Acacia Strain as we’ve never heard them before. Three tracks of sludgey, doomy, evil noise that goes ridiculously hard and adds a rotten feather to their grotesque caps.

Where the companion album ‘Step Into The Light‘ is a brisk and bruising whirlwind of blast beats and barks, ‘Failure Will Follow’ is a lot more precise and deliberate, taking its time to mete out its venomous verses in excruciating detail. Opener ‘Pillar Of Salt’ is a 10-plus minute test of endurance that utilises vocalist Vincent Bennett’s bone crumbling guttural roars to terrifying effect, as well as inviting Full Of Hell’s Dylan Walker to contribute his own vitriolic outbursts and iRis.EXE to lend some light to the darkness, her glistening vocals floating above the maelstrom like an out of body experience.

‘Bog Walker’ is the centrepiece to ‘Failure Will Follow’, clocking in at over 17 minutes, the first three of which it spends recycling the same fuzzed out riff that would sound at home on an Electric Wizard album. In fact, so long is the opening, that you could have listened to two tracks from ‘Step Into The Light’ and be halfway done with a third and that’s all before another member of the band joins this rumbling ramp up. When apocalyptic drums, eruptive bass and beefy vocals do eventually join the fray, the result is cataclysmic, the shockwaves carrying this track emphatically onward. Like a journey down the River Styx through the Seven Circles, ‘Bog Walker’ offers passage after passage of cascading riffs and neck snapping volatility.

The sad truth with this double release is that fans will inevitably pick their favourite and cast the other out as a ‘nice to have’ side dish. Sadder still is that established fans might – understandably –  stick with the sound they know best from the band and put ‘Step Into The Light’ on the pedestal over its sludgier twin. But while ‘Failure Will Follow’ seems like a new sound on the surface, all the clues have been there in their output for the best part of a decade. Doom influences have littered the likes of 2017’s ‘Gravebloom’ and 2019’s ‘It Comes In Waves’. They even recently toured the US with Full Of Hell and Primitive Man. They’re comfortable in this dank wheelhouse.

Closing with ‘Basin Of Vows’, The Acacia Strain prove this extensively. The friends they’ve accrued in high places are a big help and they call upon that support network again with Primitive Man’s Ethan McCarthy stepping in to trade lines with Bennett. Their back and forth is nothing short of enthralling, a violent tennis match between two heavyweights that ought to be savoured as much as it should be feared. Featuring more clean passages before a final section that may be Acacia’s heaviest moments to date, they make sure you’ll continue to feel ‘Failure Will Follow’ long after the closing moments ring out.

‘Failure Will Follow’ is The Acacia Strain as you’ve never heard them before – at least not to this extent. But based on the strength of this offering, we hope it’s not long before we hear them plumb such depths again. Still just as heavy but in a whole new way, The Acacia Strain may be 20 years deep in this, but Failure Will Follow feels like we’ve still only seen the tip of the iceberg.

JACK TERRY

2020 has seen them gradually reveal their brand new record ‘Slow Decay’, unveiled in a series of two-track releases that culminate with the release of the full length record and a final addition of two unreleased songs. If you’re up to speed with the installations running up to this, you already know they’re out for blood. If you’re new here though, all you need to know is that they’re incredibly pissed off and they aren’t making any effort to hide it.

The first track released, ‘Feed a Pigeon, Breed a Rat’, is also the opening track of the album, immediately setting the tone for everything that follows it. Menacing riffs rocket towards your eardrums at a slow and sludgy pace, managing to intensify the heaviness over its duration as vocalist Vincent Bennett bellows the words “it feels like hell”. He’s right, it does, and so does the rest of this album.

‘Chhinnamasta’ emits classic The Acacia Strain vibes, sounding like a cut from their 2008 record ‘Continent.’ Gigantic walls of guitars are complimented by drawn out harmonies that dance in the background, waltzing from section to section as they guide you through a gut-wrenching slice of nostalgia. ‘Inverted Person’ radiates similar vibes, especially during the blood-curdling outro that shines a blindingly bright light on the force Bennett is able to generate with his vocals.

There are tracks like ‘Crippling Poison’ that provide a generous portion of hardcore-tinged rage, combining fist-pumping riffs and wrath-filled vocals together to create a pulsing, convulsing demon. The disturbing ‘Solace and Serenity’ is powerful from the off, with low rumbling guitars and unnerving drones joining forces to send chills down your spine like a metallic version of nails to a blackboard. ‘Birds of Paradise, Birds Of Prey’ is a moody and slowly creeping monster, packed full of dirty low-tuned bends, haunting clean sections and a surprising yet devastating eruption of sincerity that drives the song towards a climactic crescendo.

There’s so much aural destruction on display here, and a large portion of it also features some tasty guest spots. Zach Hatfield of Left Behind contributes his stomach-churning screams to ‘I breathed in the smoke deeply and it tasted like death and I smiled’, a gloomy and harrowing colossus marching towards a towering and terrifying finale. ‘Seeing God’ is a no holds barred rager, featuring a mammoth guest spot from Aaron Heard of Jesus Piece. His stark and feral vocals blend well with the unpredictable barbarity on display, effortlessly fitting with both the fast paced and skulking, vicious moments.

One of the best tracks on the record is ‘The Lucid Dream’ featuring Jess Nyx, lead vocalist for Canadian hardcore band Mortality Rate. Not only is it one of the heaviest tracks on the record (check out the end of the track for definitive proof) but Nyx’s guest spot also goes the hardest, her raw and banshee-like vocals acting as the perfect compliment to Bennett’s demonic growls. Guest vocalist or not, though, this record delivers everything you could want from an Acacia Strain record. And, believe us, it delivers it with a frighteningly high level of conviction.

There’s something about this record that their last few releases haven’t had. The more you listen, the more obvious it becomes. ’Slow Decay’ blends the severe brutality that we’ve come to know and love with sinister doom-ridden characteristics that linger around every single riff, and those ominous vibes transform this record from a good metal album into a formidable, frightening and ferocious one. They hinted at a more doom-based influence with their last release ‘It Comes In Waves’, and the balance they’ve found here between both elements of their sound has been masterfully chiselled into a daunting nightmarish figure. If you like heavy music, you’ll love this.

After all these years, The Acacia Strain are still as angry as they’ve ever been and, as always, they want you to be angry too. If ‘Slow Decay’ doesn’t make you clench your fists even a little bit, it’ll chill your bones and make your hairs stand on end until you submit and give in to its fury. Be afraid. Be very afraid. Then, as soon as the fear passes, be incredibly angry.

DAVE STEWART

This is the fifth year that Tech Fest has been hosted in Nottinghamshire, at the Showground in Newark, and the location’s compact site puts the whole festival within easy reach, allowing you to get from your tent to the main stage in a maximum of five minutes. The festival’s two stage set up also means you can enjoy the entire line up without worrying about clashes, as stage times are staggered between the two, allowing one band to sound check while another performs.

It takes no time at all for the quality to show on Saturday as Pravitas blast the crowd with a barrage of classical metal. There are head banging riffs aplenty along with superb duelling guitar solos that are executed perfectly, conveying a fantastic old school metal vibe that goes down very well with those up early enough to enjoy it. Front man Joshua Barnett adds to the old school effect sporting a Metallica t-shirt, bushy long hair and an impressive moustache that all look like they belong to a bygone era. Barnett is well known to Punktastic through his instrumental math rock band Tall Talker, who we’ve previously covered as part of StrangeForms festival, but as a growling screamer fronting a metal band, he’s just as effective. A great start to another day brimming with talent thanks to this Leeds based quintet.

Tiberius continue the classic metal theme, but in contrast to Pravitas’ screamed vocals, Grant Barclay’s voice is more comparable to Iron Maiden’s Bruce Dickinson, which proves too jarring for the majority of the crowd. The guitarists look busy on stage, but the absence of a central riff or groove means the majority of their efforts fail to make an impact, not being punchy enough to cut through the booming bass and pounding drums, and so falling too flat. The band clearly have talent and Barclay’s vocals are impressive, but sadly this set fails to come together as a cohesive performance.

Young metalcore upstarts Perception put on a decent display but their largely formulaic sound does little to distinguish themselves from the hundreds of other bands churning out the same riff heavy, screamed style that they’ve adopted. The band have talent and when bassist Ryan Anderson chimes in with the occasional clean vocal it offers a glimmer of hope that the band might be on to something, so Perception could be one to look out for in the future.

Bristol’s Valis Ablaze recently put out their impressive debut full length ‘Boundless’, notable for its accomplished balance of melody and heaviness, packaged inside prog rock song structures. Phil Owen’s voice carries well on stage and each instrument is played to perfection, however the consistent mid tempo of their songs and lack of movement from the members themselves means it all falls a little flat. As a performance based on execution, it can’t be faulted, however for a festival crowd it’s not a set that will live long in the memories of those who aren’t already fans of the band’s music

The Five Hundred continue the classic theme at the Waghorn Guitars Stage, producing an accomplished and professional set. The impressive vocal range of Johnathan Woods-Eleys allows regular switching between ear piercing screams, gutteral aggression and soaring melodies, which fit nicely alongside the constant wave of heavy riffs and pulsating drum rhythms. The band won’t be winning any awards for the most original sound this weekend, but they do what they do well and can execute it perfectly on stage.

The sublimely talented Arch Echo wow the audience with their technical ability, working their way through mind bending time signatures and song structures, adding guitar and keyboard solos for good measure along the way. As good as each musician is, these songs aren’t made for mere showboating; their compositions are carried along by a core, central groove that keeps everything together, giving each song a distinguishable structure despite the regular tangents and flourishes of skill.  The quintet’s intricately woven instrumental songs are perfect for a festival that celebrates the complexities of alternative music and it’s a joy to watch a group of musicians at the top of their game flexing their abilities and loving every note they play as they do so. As they progress through the set the band joke that they’re just trying to “keep going and try to be as good as The Contortionist”. On the strength of this offering, they’ve just gone one better.

Following one of the best performances of the weekend is not an easy task and Arcaeon aren’t able to keep the momentum going. Against the other bands that have played the Waghorn Guitars Stage today the heavy moments aren’t heavy enough and the melodic breaks not memorable, leaving this set labouring in the middle of the road. The melodic moments could be effective, however, the vocals are too pitchy to carry them off and a raft of technical issues don’t help the band convey their sound in the best way. One of the guitars is absent for the majority of the set due to issues and one of the band’s new tracks has to be restarted as the backing track malfunctions. Given the talent in the band it’s a shame to not see them at their best but with obviously more to give, hopefully the Tech Fest crowd will give them another go next time they’re in town.

Not being heavy enough isn’t something that The Voynich Code worry much about. The Portuguese tech-death crew test the resolve of the speakers and necks of those gathered in front of them as they smash their way through a set of tracks that have all the subtlety of using a machete to cut your vegetables. Nelson Rebelo has an impressive arsenal of unclean vocals, mixing it up with death metal growls, throaty screams and high pitched wails, all helping to keep each song fresh and interesting. It’s an excellent show that will be remembered as one of the day’s highlights, as much for the backache as the band’s material.

The relentless heaviness continues over at the Winspear Stage as Sunderland-based quintet Nexilva launch headlong into their blistering set. The guitarists race through transitions, laying out an impressive technical display, however in their haste there’s not much of a groove to anchor to, leaving the crowd largely static without something to head bang along to. Unlike The Voynich Code’s Nelson Rebelo, Nexilva front man Dilan Alves‘ scream stays at one tone throughout and though one of the guitarists occasionally contributes clean vocals, these aren’t his strong point and don’t land well enough to add anything valuable to the band’s sound.

Making up for the lack of groove before them, Damned Spring Fragrantia bring it in bucketloads. The Italian quartet’s djent-laden patterns and fully screamed vocals bring early Northlane to mind, causing heads to bob in appreciation. Not for the first time today though the vocalist’s monotonous scream takes some of the shine away from the performance, as songs start to bleed together without any differentiation in the vocals. That aside, it’s an enjoyable set that will no doubt have attracted some new followers.

With two of the heaviest bands of the weekend coming up to close out the day, Poland’s Tides From Nebula provide a breath-taking calm before the storm to wrap up proceedings at the Waghorn Guitars Stage. The band’s progressive, instrumental post rock is the most uplifingly beautiful moment of the festival, allowing you to float away on waves of ambient chords and lead lines, before each stunning crescendo hits with emotional power. The band jokes that “we’re probably the only band today, or maybe the whole festival that has only six strings on our guitars and a tuning that’s above O” and against the tide of heavy bands featured over the past couple of days it’s a momentary, welcome escape. Thanks to the dream like qualities of the band’s sound, it’s possible to block out any other sensations, including the stifling heat, for one beautifully rewarding hour. It’s a stunning set that gets the rapturous applause it deserves.

Penultimate band Ingested announce themselves with immediate blast beats and rapid fire bass drums, and the intensity doesn’t waver from there on out. The death metal five piece occasionally reduce their frantic pace for just enough time to let the crowd nod their heads in time, before resuming their onslaught. It’s certainly not the most tuneful act of the day, but those looking to stare in admiration as musicians play super humanly fast are well rewarded and, judging by the reaction, there are plenty of people in that camp.

If violence could be condensed into musical form, it would sound something like The Acacia Strain. Saturday’s headliners are only interested in one thing: delivering a pummelling sledgehammer of noise to batter everyone round the head with. From the outset, the band’s gigantic sound engulfs the room, spawning slam dances and circle pits aplenty. There’s no subtlety in what The Acacia Strain do, this is a band designed to deliver massive heaviness and to their credit they succeed in their mission. With wave after wave of songs like this however the set does get repetitive and recycled as it goes on, but if you’re looking to be pummelled into submission, this is the band for you.

MARK JOHNSON

The Acacia Strain are to release a new album on October 14th via Rise Records. ‘Coma Witch’ is available for pre-order now from www.thewitchiscoming.com. Which (witch?) makes sense. The band have also released a video for advance track ‘Cauterizer’. PT is off to look up cauterizer in the dictionary.