“Failure will follow you wherever you may go.”
For much of their career, The Acacia Strain were known as a band with a formula. A solid one that worked for their sound, mind you, but a formula nonetheless. Chuggy, ass-beating metalcore mayhem with pissed off, confrontational lyrics and occasional dips into more leftfield influences to the group like Meshuggah, particularly in their guitar work. This was ostensibly the case with their material from the late 2000s with Continent and prior releases, all the way up to 2017’s Gravebloom. Then, something seemed to shift.
There was a hint of this sea change at the tail end of their 2014 effort, Coma Witch, with “Observer” – a gloomy, doomy, droney metal tune that saw the band achieve what I believe to be their opus – and by far their lengthiest song runtime to date, clocking in at a whopping 30 minutes. However, with limited exceptions, the group never quite leaned as heavily into that sound beyond that, until 2019’s surprise release It Comes In Waves.
From then on, the doom ‘n’ gloom sound seemed an integral part of their modern sound. Even as someone who stands as a firm diehard for 2010’s Wormwood, this change was more than welcome. Now, with their double-album release of Step Into the Light, alongside what we have here in Failure Will Follow, it seems The Acacia Strain are embracing the extremes of their sonic spectrum with open arms.
Standing at just three tracks, Failure Will Follow’s hefty 39-minute runtime may seem like a colossal obstacle upon first glance, but given just how encapsulating cuts like “Observer” had been in the past, I welcomed the expansive nature of these things. Opener “pillar of salt” wholly validated this, too, being a swirling and ever-expanding 11-minute epic, harbouring some of the most equally punishing and outwardly gorgeous moments this band have ever put to record.
While the main vocal feature inclusion of Full of Hell’s Dylan Walker is an apt and great one, the real showstopper is the surprise feature from producer/musician up-and-comer iRis.EXE. Her haunting, nigh-on operatic performance gives the tail end of this explosive opening cut a truly unsettling, eerie and strangely pretty feeling, before it descends into chaos once more.
Following cut “bog walker”, unfortunately, falls relatively flat in comparison. With the opening stretch of minutes of this 17-minute mammoth solely consisting of one low-tuned, bluesy guitar riff with slight variations, it would be understandable for some to get turned off here. While, once the song truly kicks in, it’s an enjoyable ride, the extended intro feels like an unnecessary barrier to entry. Even once it does kick in, however, it doesn’t quite have the same heft and expansive nature is “pillar of salt” did, and on the whole left me feeling a tad disappointed, despite containing some great elements within its runtime.
Closing number “basin of vows” ups the ante, however, with the record’s most outwardly sludgy and violent track. Containing a fantastic feature from Primitive Man’s Ethan McCarthy, the Failure Will Follow’s closing track reinvigorates the record in much-needed and explosive fashion. Punishing and brutal end-to-end, playing with elements of sludge, doom, drone and noise, alongside sprinkles of eerie melodicism, “basin of vows” brings Failure Will Follow to an oppressive, unrelenting end in style.
All told, it’s undeniable that on Failure Will Follow, The Acacia Strain have proven they’re not to be pigeonholed. It’s not as refined as the accompanying Step Into the Light, but it’s Acacia with their creativity unchecked. Their most sprawling, compositionally impressive, but equally obtuse record, I can’t see it as one that’s designed for anything other than their own artistic satisfaction – and it achieves that and more. While I do certainly believe the second cut is a relative lull compared to the other two it sits between, the highs on Failure Will Follow are enough for me to recommend you give this album your time, provided you can stomach it.
7.5/10
Failure Will Follow is due for release alongside Step Into the Light this Friday, May 12th, and you can find pre-orders for the record here.