sorry for the little lack of posts the last week but i was occupied with getting a ticket for this year's wacken festival and attending it eventually. but more of this at the given time. now back to daily business: the acacia strain's eigth full length called "gravebloom". the band is around since 2001 in one form or another. this means 2017 marks their fifteen year anniversary and a roughly average of one album every two years. remarkable if you ask me.
over the years the acacia strain witnessed multiple line-up changes with vocalist vincent bennett being the only steady member since its founding. somehow they managed to maintain their trademark sound. hefty death metal combined with nyc hardcore groove and arhythmic breakdowns. beginning with "wormwood" in 2010 they started to become more complex with a strong doom touch. "death is the only mortal" two years later was too much of a good thing for me. in 2014 and with another line-up change "coma witch" was a splendid return to form and combining the new doom elements with the crushing fierceness of "continent" from 2008.
now "gravebloom" worked with the same approach which made "coma witch" so good to me. the only difference is that "gravebloom" is simply better. this bad boy is so heavy, fast, intense, slow, dark, depressing, dissonant, angry, crushing - an abyssal trip through the dark centre of man. wow, i cannot praise this scorcher enough. you have to listen to this album in whole to live through all the ups and downs, the highs and lows "gravebloom" has on offer. a masterpiece in my eyes.
this is the third acacia strain album being released via rise records. they use to manufacture a high amount of vinyl copies for their releases. thankfully rise records presses some fancy colour-ways even for the least limited pressing which was available via german distros. i bought my copy from jpc.de. it comes on black inside clear with grey splatter vinyl. looks lovely. the artwork shows a common thread throughout the covers since "wormwood". again justin kamerer of angryblue was responsible for the great art. 3.000 copies made of my version. rise records. 2017.
