New Music Report – Apr 17, 2020
Ok so I was late this week, sorry about that guys, but there are a few SUPER heavy and very impressive releases this week, so better late than never. Once again, The Acacia Strain is the coolest band of 2020. But there’s more to check out, for sure.
The Acacia Strain – We’re now on the third installment of surprise EPs from The Acacia Strain, and they’re starting to make a little more sense. We have D, E, and now, C, and when you piece the album art together you can see a progressive decay of the landscape, supported by a music decay in both theme and tone. So, I reckon we’re going to get A in three weeks’ time. Figuring out the process behind this is honestly just as interesting as the music itself, I’m loving this. I’ve said this with every single one of these reviews, but The Acacia Strain are absolutely killing it this year, I can’t think of another band out there that’s keeping things this interesting. It’s cool piecing an album together like this, it really lets you devote a lot of time to processing each song, and these two are both big ones. Which of course is funny since one song only clocks in at about a minute long, but man, does it hit hard in that minute. It is hands down one of the heaviest tracks TAS has ever written. The second track “I breathed in the smoke deeply it tasted like death and I smiled” is a dragging, sludgy, epic tune, reminiscent of their EP from December, It Comes in Waves, which is a personal favorite of mine. I really loved this installment of the series; so diverse, heavy, and captivating, and managing that breadth of sonic delivery in just two songs. I can’t wait for the next one.
Enter Shikari – This one was… Interesting. Enter Shikari have always had some weird elements to their albums and a lot of interlude-y tracks and electronic-driven hooks and breakdowns, and this is kind of the same, but it all feels less organized. Conceptually, it’s kind of all over the place, and a lot of the tracks didn’t flow very well. There’s also a stark contrast between the first and second half of the album, which was intentional, but the second half is WAY better, which probably wasn’t. Now, don’t get me wrong, there are SEVERAL singles that are huge standouts, and the album is diverse enough that those standout songs are going to be different for everybody, so this is definitely worth checking out to find those songs for yourself. But as a cohesive album, I think it feels scattered and disjointed.
The Black Dahlia Murder – Holy shit. Honestly, there haven’t been too many TBDM albums that have really been able to hold my attention. They’re an incredible band, but the only album of theirs that I ever find myself revisiting is Nocturnal. The rest kinda have that death metal drone where all the double kick and guitar shredding starts to sound monotonous. But again, holy shit. This is some of their best work to date. It’s incredibly heavy, incredibly technical, and thankfully, incredibly interesting.
Silent Planet – This only sorta counts, they released an instrumental only version of The Night God Slept this week. So it’s not anything new, exactly, but it’s still very good. And as I’ve said before, this band will ALWAYS deserve support.