per koro pt. 1/5: the acacia strain

i have some geek rules when it's about blogging. i post about records in the order i recieve them. not in the order i ordered them. there is no exception. geek rule number two is that i have to listen to the records at least once so i can form an at least half decent opinion. geek rule #3 is that i categorize my posts according to the places i got the stuff from. when there are more than three records i got in one go i divide the post into as much parts as needed (even numbers if possible), which is actually geek rule #4.

why i tell you that? good question! i'm about to change one of my rules. by now i think it's cooler to give one record one single post on its own. so i'm starting a little experiment today. the next five records to come are all of one order from per koro. when i start with the first today, i have to get the four following posts done by this month (because that's geek rule #5). i'll see if i can make it and this procedure works for me.

enough said. onto the record...

the acacia strain - death is the only mortal

man, the new acacia strain. it's not actually new. it came out somewhere in 2012. i recognized this release but i wasn't too keen on actually getting a copy for several reasons. first reason was that 'wormwood', the precursor album, didn't really convince me. they had become too slow, too bulky and too dissonant. next reason was that at the time i was involved in too many other stuff and the last reason was the availability. i knew of two versions and i knew i would get the more common one if i order from a german distro. to get the limited version i would have to order from the states which increases shipping rates. i try to avoid that in the recent past. i found that i can get almost everything through german distros or local record shops. so it took me quite some time to get a copy of 'death is the only mortal'.

i added it to my last per koro order because i got pretty curious about what the record would sound like. i listened to it 4-5 times by now and i think i can safely say that it's a bit of a let down. they pretty much walked the way of the 'wormwood' again. it's still too slow, too bulky and too dissonant. in some moments you get the feeling that they finally push it forward with some up tempo parts and some nice melodies but just in the next seconds they fall back into their tardy sound walls. a bit too monotonous to me. i wish they would go back to the sound of records like '3750', 'the dead walk' or 'continent'.

so taste is arguable but what is definitely cool through an objective view is the presentation. nice gatefold sleeve with cool art work on both sides, a nice lyric sheet, white vinyl and a cd to rip the music for your digital amusement. white vinyl is limited to 1000 copies. theres a green/pink splatter version also 'limited' to 1000 copies (this is what i thought to be the more limited one). seems like a pretty high amount of copies to me. are they that successful in the states?

rise records. 2012.