Review Summary: You know that feeling you get right after you tackle someone and just lay them right out? Take that feeling and turn it into 11 songs that keep that feeling from start to finish.
I'd been meaning to pick this album up for awhile now, but after hearing so much bad about the deathcore genre in general, I decided to put it off for awhile. Once I started getting into bands that had more of a deathcore, death metal, or even a sort of brutal hardcore sound, I decided to go ahead and check these guys out, and they did not disappoint. The first track of the album,
Skynet tips you off right away that you're about to start one helluva ride. The song starts off relatively quiet, and steadily builds up to Daniel Laskiewicz(guitar), Kevin Boutot(drums), and Jack Strong(bass) coming in with what is, at the risk of sounding like a fanboy, a facemelting breakdown. You only need to wait a few seconds before Vincent Bennet comes in and boosts up the brutality by growling out the words "If you think like a whore then you're a f
ucking whore." Now, I don't know about you, but after hearing that, I got pumped. The rest of the track cruises along with everything going fast and frantic. Boutot is just frantically pounding away on the drums, Laskiewicz manages to pull of some solos that get you pumped, only to be followed by Vinny growling and gurgling to the point that you want to start a fight just to get rid of the adrenaline rush.
The thing about these guys, is that they don't sound like another band being brutal just to be brutal, or being brutal just to prove they've got what it takes to be All Shall Perish Clone #4937378, they sound like they're having fun, and they sound like they all love what they're doing. The Acacia Strain members have once again, in an almost Animosity-like move, managed to put out an amazing album that sounds even more brutal, even faster, and even more talented than their last album in every respect.
Dr. Doom, another highlight of the album starts off with the admittedly cliche scream in the intro. But trust me, when you hear this, you're not worrying about that at all, you want to get right in there and be part of the band, but before you can even recover from the initial brutality of the song, you're hit in the face again with more amazing guitar and bass work, and even more frantic drumming.
JFC, or "Jesus F
ucking Christ", not only the name of the 8th track, but also what you're going to be thinking as you hear this song start out. Mixed a little quieter than normal, you hear Bennet growl out the words "I am the end of the world" which is immediately followed by the breakdown that
will make you repeat the rest of the song. This song is literally breakdown after breakdown after breakdown. And unlike The Devil Wears Prada's latest attempt at cramming 8 or 9 breakdowns into one song, these guys can actually do it without making you want to stab the vocalist in the face. Just as the next song finishes and you think the album is going to start slowing down, you're hit with
The Combine. Despite being only 2:02, this is without a doubt my favorite song on the album. Everything starts at the same time, everything stays going for the entire song, and nothing ever lets up. All of the members manage to sound at least twice as brutal, twice as skilled, and twice as angry. The vocals kick everything up another notch with the repeated phrases "No remorse for anything, No salvation for anyone." and "You want a war motherf
ucker? I'll give you a f
ucking war!"
The Acacia Strain are a band that don't really save the deathcore genre, they are moving ahead and being one of the few talented bands that have unfortunately been grouped into the genre because of the seemingly limitless metal, death, and hardcore groups coming to fame every day. Continent is a great album that any corefag, scenester, or metalhead should seriously check out regardless of what they think of the deathcore genre.
