The Acacia Strain‘s devotion to keeping their music devastatingly heavy has become their proverbial calling card over the years . As “Wormwood” readily proves, the group aren’t about to change the stationery. A powerful display of misanthropic venom being spewed overtop of simplified Meshuggah-styled riffs and a pummeling rhythm section, this album finds their hostility broken down to its most vicious form.
But if anything has defined The Acacia Strain‘s music as a whole, it would be the hulking rhythmic syncopation that continually keeps the subwoofers rumbling. “Wormwood” certainly has its fair share of frenzied snarl, but it’s the primal bass-heavy drop tunings and rigid exploration of the lower register that remains its most striking aesthetic.
Unfortunately though, such qualities aren’t entirely as unique as they used to be as the territory these Massachusetts natives established for themselves a few years back has been increasingly encroached upon by numerous outfits in recent times.
Normally a group with as bloodthirsty a skill set as The Acacia Strain can fend off such dilution by focusing on their strengths and coming out on top through sheer force. However, this is where “Wormwood” generally falters. The songs, while bruisingly heavy, possess little variation not only from each other, but from past efforts. Nearly every track adopts the same lumbering tempo and formula.
It’s this creative restraint and heavy for the sake of being heavy approach that can make the outing bloat under its own weight over the course of a mere few tracks. Some ringing chords, a chunky riff-driven verse and the occasional screechy atmospheric chorus generally sums up the playbook.
Instrumental stagnancy alone can be hard to swallow, but its not the biggest horse pill on this record. That honor would go to the lyrical content which seems dulled to an almost elementary level. Sure band frontman Vincent Bennett has gone in a more personal direction, but by limiting his allusive vocabulary, the bluntness and shock value of his guttural ravings soon come off as shallow and cliché.
Cons aside, “Wormwood” remains a fierce piece of thunderous metal that will certainly please most of the groups established fan base. But its lack of growth and inability to experiment outside of say the addition of an eight string guitar is troubling to say the least.
