Metalcore/deathcore legends, The Acacia Strain comes storming back to your ear holes with not just one new album, but two! The Massachusetts natives have dropped Step Into the Light and Failure Will Follow (Rise Records). The first album is a more “traditional” album, while the second is three, ten-minute, or longer doom tracks. We had seen previously TAS drop a doom track that took up an entire second disk, but this time the doom and gloom gets an album for itself.

‘Chain’ is the shortest track on Step Into the Light but packs one of the biggest punches. Starting off hot with blast beats on the drums, the track progresses into a more punk feel, and then closes with a sluggish breakdown. ‘Open Wound’ is a great name for this track as the first half is a truly blistering experience. What’s more, the ending breakdown gives off the feeling that something is crawling outward from the wound. The final track is really well placed as The Acacia Strain is wrapping up this album and moving onto the next. ‘None of Us Asked to Be Here’ is a delicious blend of deathcore and sludge metal, hinting at the doom that is to come.

‘Pillar of Salt’ starts off Failure Will Follow with depressing chord progressions and melancholy female vocals in the bridge section. The outro is a solid minute of thunderous guitar riffs and drumming to signify a dramatic end. ‘Bog Walker’ is one of the longest tracks The Acacia Strain has ever recorded at a whopping seventeen minutes. 

The majority of the song utilizes variations of a groovy, blues riff that one would feel accustomed to hearing during a Southern US sludge band’s set, but with extra distortion to further rattle bones. ‘Basin of Vows’ closes out this journey with some of the heaviest riffs recorded to date and borrowing more from the first track with some spoke word over “sad boi” guitar riffs. After the distortion dies out, there is only the slowly dying sound of a melody until nothing is left but silence.

Having grown up with The Acacia Strain locally here in Massachusetts through their career, it has been a real treat to watch them evolve into what they are today. Step Into the Light and Failure Will Follow are two very different albums but really make up the two sides of what TAS is under the surface. A true dissection of their identity as a band and musicians. 

There are so many stellar records from the Deathcore group, but I fully believe that this double release is going to go down as one of the best this side of their discography.

Pre-order the albums here:

https://riserecords.lnk.to/StepIntoTheLight

9 / 10

TIM LEDIN