the acacia strain - failure will follow

the doomier one of the whole double album release affair. not bad at all. 4.000 copies on 'seafood allergy' vinyl. rise records.

the acacia strain - step into the light

latest tas effort unleashed unto the world as a double album sort of thing. i prefer this one. the strain delivering the goods again. 4.000 copies on highlighter yellow vinyl. rise records.

the acacia strain - slow decay

there are not many bands around that release as consistently good as the acacia strain. their latest effort "slow decay" is another great full length under their belt (number nine!). only got the lame european version on gold vinyl (un)limited to 1.700 copies. still sounds great ;-) released by rise records in 2020.

galactic empire - episode II

actually i wanted to be done with all my posts about 2018 releases in july but here we are with the last one in august. ah well, does anybody care anyway? galactic empire was one of the surprises of early 2017 and i was blown away by the technical finesse with which the band played all those lovely orchestral pieces john williams wrote for my favourite movies of all time. even the songs for the sequels worked like magik to my muscles of the neck, i couldn't stop banging my head.

galactic empire made a few north american live appearances and their success even brought them to europe for a string of shows. i was lucky enough that they also played in hamburg so i went there in late april and the gig was a blast. the guys played in full costume which must have been unbelievably hot. even i was sweating just from existing because the small venue was well stocked. galactic played a fantastic gig and i was close to get the new record from the merch table despite my pre-order still going.

i could restrain myself eventually and waited patiently for my ordered copy to arrive. i bought it at jpc.de and it came in in prime condition. they know how to pack vinyl! musically episode II was not as familiar to me as the debut because quite a few songs are adaptions from the recent star wars movies (which are excellent in my humble opinion). still they play them with such virtuosity that i enjoy them anyway. great record and great colour-way. cyan blue and black merge out of 838 copies. rise records. 2018.

post scriptum: tomorrow is the first festival day of wacken 2018. i am excited for converge, ghost, dimmu borgir, gojira and a few more. i am off to wacken! see you...

the acacia strain - gravebloom

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.

galactic empire

this thing came straight out of the blue for me. i mean, i remember that i saw the video to the "main theme" somewhere along the way on the tube last year but i thought this was some well done fan project, a one-time occurence. i think, actually i am not far from the truth with that assumption. the "main theme" was put out to the release of star wars VII - the force awakens and was pretty succesful with over four million clicks to date.

backed up with such good resonance the guys set up a crowdfunding campaign and collected over sixty thousand dollars to record a full length album. rise records signed the band and over a year after they first appeared, the self-titled debut is out for the taking. i missed all the buzz around them and just learned about the existence of this record by seeing the album pop up for order at some german distros a week ago. i simply liked the cover art and then was delighted to find that this whole thing was a metal adaption of the music of my favourite movies of all time.

star wars metal is probably the coolest thing on earth, especially when it is so god damn well executed. their technical approach to the classic pieces is breathtaking at times. just listen to "duel of fates" (the first time i partly enjoy a prequel) and "across the stars" and be taken to a galaxy far far away... i ordered this pearl via jpc.de and i can only recommend them. fast and smooth transaction here. the vinyl colour looks awesome and matches the cover art very well. 1138 copies on transparent orange crush with halloween orange splatter. rise records. 2017.

the depression sessions

"the depression sessions" is a three-way split featuring thy art is murder, the acacia strain and fit for an autopsy. i am a fan of the first two, the acacia strain in particular and therefore was tempted to get this split 12". as all three bands would contribute only one new song and a cover song each, i was a bit split over the relevance of this output. two things convinced me eventually. number one was the song "they will know another" from thy art is murder. since "holy war", their latest album, this band knows how to combine finest tech death metal with wonderful, apocalyptic melodies and this song is just another proof.

reason number two was the two cover songs of taim and tas. tas graces us with their version of soundgarden's "black hole sun" and taim crafted rammstein's "du hast" into their very own sound. i have a personal connection with both songs. "black hole sun" was a video favourite of mine. the song and the video make for such a strong symbiosis and the visuals make the music even better. i got rammstein's record "sehnsucht" from 1997 as a gift back then and it was one of the first real full lengths i listened to. i knew every song by heart but their stuff didn't really age well with me.

all the more i was surprised as to how taim made this song so enjoyable to me. i love how these australians played with the tempo and song structure. it gives "du hast" a real unique touch plus it's always entertaining listening to non-native speakers trying to sing/scream in german, haha. tas's version of "black hole sun" is more in the vein of the original but still cool. fit for an autopsy's two songs are not really my cup of tea - i had to look up that they did a nine inch nails cover - but still this is quality and i can see why they share this split. 350 copies on clear with red splatter. nuclear blast. rise records. good fight entertainment. 2016.

for the fallen dreams - heavy hearts

back in 2008 for the fallen dreams was one of my myspace finds. i bought the 'changes' cd and boy, i loved it. what am i saying? i still love this. such a good modern melodic hardcore record. absolutely on top of its game. the cd is selling for crazy money nowadays. unfortunately there never had been a vinyl release. after that superb record they changed the vocalist and the second album was full of bad clean singing. mehh, not my taste.

after two more bad records with the new singer and even more member changes - i doubt that there are any original members left - they are back with 'heavy hearts'. unnoticed by me. i couldn't have cared less. but then christmas time came around and my girlfriend and me were visiting families. in between christmas and new year we were burning some santa money and i came upon this album. i listened to some song excerpts and was wondering if the original singer was back. it sounded very much like him.

back home i downloaded the album and was surprised to find that my assumption was right. chad ruhling is back on track with for the fallen dreams. the stuff 'heavy hearts' has to offer is very much in the vein of 'changes'. not just as good but the misery signals feeling is back, again with their very own touch. i snaged a copy some days later in hamburg. you can stream the whole baby here. white vinyl out of 600 copies. comes with a cd of the album. rise records. 2014.

the acacia strain - coma witch

i was in breathless anticipation as i red about the anouncement of the new the acacia strain record 'coma witch'. you know about my feelings concerning the last record 'death is the only mortal'? to sum them up, i was highly disappointed about it. it was so exhausting, so inaccessible, and yes, so boring that i thought their good times were all through. but then came their teaser 7" 'above / below', these two songs promised a revival of their old sound.

with 'old sound' i mean the fantastic first three records up to their crowning achievement 'continent'. and now that i hold the record in hands and played it a few times on my turntable, i cannot get the grin off of my face. yes my the acacia strain are back. i welcome their regained straight forward riffing. of course they still have these off-beat elements and dissonant rhythms but they scaled them down to a digestiable dosage.

i'm really more than happy about this return to form. you know how it is, a loved band of yours strayed from the path and you just had to let them go. and then, out of the blue, they're coming home. welcome back! you sit around a table, chat about the new things, giggle about times you've been through together way back in the day and cast aside the recent misdeeds with a wave of the hand. listen to 'holy walls of the vatican' and to 'send help' and make yourself comfortable.

the second disc comes with a track called observer which spans over both sides of the vinyl. in the description text over at per koro, where i bought the record from, said this was a half an hour long song consisting of dark samples, growls and screams. i was initially put off by this statement. my first association coming to mind was the intro of the slipknot's 'iowa' album. you ever heard that? man, that is hard to take because it sounds so utterly insane to me. after i listened to 'observer' for the first time, i was relieved to find that it was nothing like that. it's simply an overlong song that gets under your skin. take the time and be rewarded!

i saw some pre-orders going up but only for clear vinyl and green for bundles. must have been already late to the process because later on i was informed about a 'starbust' colour via discogs more limited than the clear or green ones. as the release date came i checked at per koro and thankfully they had a coloured option available. by then i saw pics of a pruple marble on the net which had been chosen for distribution. i got that in the end and am very happy with it. it just looks lovely. don't care about the admittedly high pressing number of 2400 copies. comes with full album on cd. rise records. 2014.

the acacia strain - above/below

a new acacia strain offering and i am very sceptical to say the least. news came to me through a pretty remote channel. i scrolled down the new in stock list at per koro and came across it. that was cool in a way because it spared me the torture of waiting of a pre-order process. instead of that it was quite exciting not to know any song or the colour it would come on.

at first when it arrived i was pretty delighted to see the lovely colour way matching the cover art nicely. but then came the tricky part. dropping the needle on it. the last record "death is the only mortal" was kind of exhausting. but not the rewarding type. so you may understand my joy as i heard the first song "above". up-tempo, face melting riffs and a bone crushing breakdown. hell yeah, this feels like "wormwood" and "death is the only mortal" never happened and they continued right after "continent".

the second song "below" is not quite as strong but the apocalyptic feeling is definitely there and they finally know how to keep their songs interesting again. the line-up changes had been pretty healthy in my eyes. "above/below" is a great appetiser and i'm craving for the upcoming release. let it come. this was supposed to be a brown colour but it came out a little different. more orange if you ask me. 600 made. rise records. 2013.

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.